maybe my heart needs to break to be sure

by lilith_writes

Summary:

"Why don't you start at the top?" Roberto said, not unkindly.

Vash's shoulders squared, his cheeks mottling beet red. He buried his face in his hands, his posture tight and uncomfortable. A pained little croak leaked out of him.

Meryl's heart ached with every hard thump against her ribs, like it was embedded with glass. All this time, all this pain he was in...

She looked at the GPS. Fifty iles to the next settlement.

Hang on, Vash.

⁌

Vash's inhuman biology creates a harrowing situation. Meryl and Wolfwood pick up the pieces.

Chapter 1

Notes:

One trick pony, reporting for duty ( •̀ω•́ )ゝ

I would say I'm sorry for this, but. Yanno. Seems like it's Nightow's fault, anyway, for making Vash so whumpable.

Characterizations are somewhere between tristamp and '98 because I would marry '98 Wolfwood if I could. Vashwood with slightly more platonic mashwood undertones!

Story is pre-written and just needs editing, I'll post every three to five days, unless something comes up :)

Mind the tags, Mama Lil is at the helm. The content is heavy, even compared to my usual writing. I debated on tagging it dead dove, but ultimately decided it didn't quite warrant it. Still, keep yourselves safe. <3

Okay, 3, 2, 1, let's suffer jam.

Among those who actually knew him personally, it was a well-established fact that Vash the Stampede couldn't stand to hurt anyone. Physically, now that was a given, but he equally hated causing emotional harm. If he could spare someone's feelings, could tell a little white lie that kept the other party from knowing a large ugly truth, or, more commonly, to keep anyone from worrying about him, he would bend over backwards until he cracked his spine. It mostly tended to happen if he was injured, because God forbid someone suffer the unforgivable inconvenience that was caring whether he lived or died. Meryl almost couldn't keep track of the times they had crawled away from a shootout, or a bar fight, or any other manner of altercation they often fell face-first into, all four of them seemingly no worse for wear, only to find, anywhere from a few minutes to days later, that Vash had somehow concealed a bullet wound in his shoulder, or a stab wound in his thigh, or broken ribs, or a sprained wrist or twisted ankle.

Honestly, though, she would much rather it be a simple sprain or fracture. Sometimes, the injuries weren't so par for the course, nor were they so easy to hide.

In one instance, an explosion from a subtly-tossed pipe bomb during a fight cooked a pretty large chunk of Vash's thigh to medium rare and peppered his right arm full of shrapnel. It probably wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't practically been on top of the damn thing to shield Meryl and Roberto from the blast, but as usual, he had the self-preservation of a toddler and the protective instinct of a mother bear, which was an incredibly self-destructive combo, as Meryl was slowly discovering the more time she spent around the Humanoid Typhoon. After disarming the guilty party and sending him running with his tail between his legs, Vash had reluctantly leaned on Roberto's shoulder for support, retreating back to the van with a determined but obvious limp. Meryl had felt terrible about him taking such painful injuries for them, and no matter how queasy it had made her feel, after Vash's leg was cleaned and bandaged, she had helped him dig the debris out of his arm with tweezers from his first aid kit until there was no metal left. Well, besides the odd steel grafts and wiring that seemingly held his marred skin together.

That was the first time Meryl had ever caught a glimpse of his scars, and she'd spent most of that night quietly weeping into her pillow, heartsick to her core over this terminally loving man that so many people insisted was a cold-blooded murderer.

Another time, he had nearly bitten clean through his tongue after taking a surprise uppercut to the chin from a surly man whose son had been a casualty in a shootout targeting Vash years ago. They hadn't even noticed it until they were back in the van and speeding away from the town, when Vash had softly slurred out a plea for something to spit the blood into. Needless to say, it had brought the van to a screeching halt, with a cacophony of worried shrieks from all three of his travel companions rending the air and a hasty scramble by Wolfwood to yank Vash out of the vehicle so he could drool blood into the sand for a few minutes while his body knitted itself back together. Thank God, there had been no permanent damage. Meryl had been bewildered as to how at the time, as that one had been before The Sandsteamer Incident, but now, she was relieved that Vash wasn't human, or he might never have spoken normally again.

She loved hearing Vash talk about anything under the suns. His happy chatter would've been sorely missed.

The worst one, the one that still lurked through Meryl's mind during restless sleep, had been a close-quarters scuffle with an unnecessarily beefy outlaw, who had managed to snag Vash by one skinny ankle and hurl him at the speed of a bullet, sending him smashing through at least two stone walls. When they had dug him out of the rubble (after Wolfwood had shot the perpetrator right through the back of the head out of sheer rage), Vash had been covered in blood and clawing for air, the breath knocked out of him, unable to stand. He ended up slung over Wolfwood's shoulder like a sack of flour, coughing and heaving as they hoofed it back to the van before the townspeople could get any wild hairs. When they examined him, Wolfwood had grimly said his hip was dislocated and would have to be popped back into place. Meryl would never be able to forget Vash's stupid pained smile, nor his gentle "it's alright, Meryl, don't worry about me," nor the sickening, meaty pop of Wolfwood and Roberto forcing the ball joint of Vash's hip back into its socket, nor the deafening screams rattling the van windows, tinged with an inhuman texture that made the fine hairs on the back of Meryl's neck stand on end.

That was one of the only times she had ever seen Vash unable to keep quiet from an injury. Either his pain tolerance was crazy high due to his physiology, or he had just learned to grin and bear it, but not that time. That one had been too much for even him to handle.

Ninety percent of the time, though, if Vash was injured and could hide it, he would. He would be quiet and cagey to try and spare their worry for as long as possible, then it would come crumbling down around him as his injuries came to light, and Meryl would throw the van into park so she could climb into the back seat, expressing concern and threatening to box his ears all in the same breath.

At present, it seemed like they were approaching that same sort of breaking point, but for the life of her, Meryl couldn't parse out what could be wrong this time. They hadn't even seen a town for two days, and had avoided a fight for nearly three.

Vash had been...strange, ever since they had woken up that morning. Moody and almost cranky, something he almost never was in earnest. He and Wolfwood had been sniping at each other all day, edging much further toward mean-spirited than their normal, friendly banter, and it had Meryl clutching the wheel in an iron grip and Roberto noping out of the situation in the form of a nice, long snooze.

Must be nice. Couldn't be her.

"You're breathin' funny."

Vash, for probably the first time since Meryl had known him, looked genuinely irritated. His dark brows furrowed, multiplying the scrunched lines already between them, and his eyes narrowed behind orange lenses. "I'm just breathing, Wolfwood."

"Yeah. Breathin' funny."

One hand lifted in a baffled gesture, and Vash coughed out an exasperated, cheerless laugh. "Well, my bad. I may be a Plant, but I can't photosynthesize. I still need to breathe. Sorry it's so annoying."

"That's not what I—" Wolfwood broke off with a scoff, shaking his head and muttering. "Never mind."

Meryl glanced in the rear view mirror again after a minute of silence; Wolfwood had propped his temple on his hand and was glowering out the window at the passing sand like he was trying to burn a hole through the glass with his eyes. Vash was doing the same, arms crossed, with one long leg drawn up near his body and his temple resting on the window, nudging his shooting glasses slightly askew. He looked pissed off and troubled, Meryl thought as she watched Vash shift his hips as though his back was bothering him. She knew how he felt; they'd been driving for over forty-eight hours now, besides breaks to sleep and eat and stretch their legs, and her own back and legs were sore as all get out.

Maybe he was just in a bad mood because of that. Meryl supposed that even a human-shaped sunburst could have bad moods. When compared to some of his weirder behaviors over the past month or so, like his uncharacteristic introversion, or keeping his coat zipped up to his neck all the time, or actually bothering to eat at mealtimes, a bad mood was pretty normal.

A couple of minutes later, Meryl heard Vash break the tense silence with a murmur, though she pretended not to hear. Roberto's moderately loud log-sawing in the passenger seat was enough cover that she could eavesdrop without being too obvious.

"I'm sorry. That was rude of me."

Wolfwood made a 'tch' sound between his teeth. "Whatever." But when he continued, his tone had lost all bite. "What's got your panties in a twist? You hiding an injury again?"

"...no."

"Hrm."

Meryl sighed silently to herself, rubbing the inner corners of her eyes with her fingertips. That wasn't the exact tone Vash usually used when he was fibbing, but she could tell he definitely wasn't telling the whole truth, either. It was miniscule, barely noticeable, but there was a certain stiff quality to his voice, like he was trying too hard to keep it even.

You would think, after months of travel and what she hoped was at the very least friendship, that he would trust them a little more.

Seconds after having the thought, though, Meryl inwardly shook her head. This was Vash she was talking about. Trusting people had probably backfired on him so many times that he'd lost count.

She gave him the benefit of the doubt. He was allowed to just be having a tough day. She had those sometimes, too, and she didn't always feel like talking about it when they happened. So, she left him alone.

Well, she did, until about an hour later, when she heard Vash's breathing trip in a way that sounded suspiciously like an involuntary pain response that he hadn't been able to gulp down in time.

Usually, at this point, Meryl and Wolfwood ended up trading a deadpan, knowing look, their parallel suspicions having been confirmed, but when she reflexively went to catch Wolfwood's eye in the rear view mirror, she found him dozing against the window, unlit cigarette dangling from his parted lips and ready to fall. So, instead, she turned her eyes to Vash.

When their gazes locked in the mirror, Meryl sat up straighter, an uneasy frown slowly stealing across her face.

Vash looked like a cornered animal, frozen in the presence of a predator on the hunt. A frantic plea burned bright in his azure eyes. A plea for Meryl not to say anything, no doubt. To just leave him to deal with whatever problem was arising all by himself.

Good thing she wouldn't be doing that.

"What's going on?" Meryl whispered so as not to wake the other two, knowing Vash would hear regardless of how quiet she was, even over the noise of the vehicle and its meager air conditioner. His senses were freakishly sharp.

Pulling himself forward with the bars of her seat's head rest and visibly swallowing back another noise as he did, Vash rested his chin on the shoulder of the seat. Thankfully, they were in the middle of nowhere, so she could safely keep her eyes on him for several seconds at a time without endangering them all. Nothing around for iles but sand, sand, and more sand.

A band of worry tightened around her heart when she saw the glisten of sweat on Vash's brow.

"How long until we reach the next town?" He whispered back. Meryl's pulse tripped; it sounded like he'd been kicked in the stomach and hadn't regained his breath yet.

With a few taps to the vehicle's screen, she pulled up the GPS.

"Two and a half hours if I step on it," she whispered.

A terribly resigned look flashed across Vash's face, edged with panic that made Meryl feel ill.

She forced her vocal cords to work. "You need to tell me what's wrong, right now. Are you hurt?"

He didn't answer, only pressed his forehead to the side of Meryl's headrest and gave a shuddering sigh. "I thought I had more time," he croaked, barely audible.

Meryl's fingers white-knuckled the steering wheel. Her heart rate was climbing, whooshing in her ears. "Vash, you're scaring me."

Instantly, Vash's eyes snapped open, strangely hazy but full of remorse. "I'm not trying to. I'm sorry." He squeezed her left shoulder with his prosthetic hand.

Meryl had to bite the inside of her lip until it crunched to keep her face straight. Where Vash's touch had been meant to reassure, it instead poured frigid chills down her spine.

Vash was much stronger than a human, and whatever was wrong with him, it must have been distracting enough that he hadn't realized how hard he'd squeezed Meryl's shoulder. It throbbed hot and cold like an electric current in the shape of Vash's hand. It didn't feel broken, but there would definitely be some nasty bruising there in a few hours. God, she hoped Vash never found out how much that had hurt, or he would probably launch himself into whichever sun was closest out of sheer, self-sacrificial guilt.

Meryl didn't care that he'd hurt her. She wasn't worried about herself. She was worried about why the sweetest, most selfless person she'd ever met in her life was feeling the kind of pain that could shatter his awareness badly enough to do something as exceedingly out of character as hurt someone.

Something was wrong.

She swallowed the taste of copper and wet her lips, trying to take steady breaths. Losing her head wouldn't do Vash any good. "I can't help if I don't know what's happening. Please, tell me what's wrong."

Vash's breathing audibly paused. "I can't," he managed.

"Vash, if you broke your ribs and didn't tell us again—"

"That's not...I'm not...injured," he panted.

Meryl shook her head slightly in confusion. "Then what is it? Is it something I can help with...?"

"Nnno. Not right now."

"Is it...contagious?"

A half-hysterical little whimper. "Definitely not."

Meryl's blood went cold, the next thought numbing her fingertips. "Are you dying or something? Is that why you're being so...?"

"No! No. No dying," he grunted, his voice strangely taut. "I promise."

Meryl's throat felt shrink-wrapped around her trachea. She dug her thumbnail into the rubber of the steering wheel. "Then, just...tell me what I need to do. Stop? Drive?"

Vash was silent.

She glanced over her shoulder at him. His eyes were screwed shut, fresh sweat beading on his forehead. Whatever was happening, it was happening again.

"Vash," Meryl whispered faintly.

His voice came out pinched.

"Drive. Please."

She stepped on the gas pedal.

 

⁌

Notes:

:')

Thanks for reading this far! Let me know what you think if you so desire 🙏

Chapter 2

Notes:

Hallelujah, Ao3 is back! Hopefully it lasts long enough for yall to get to read this chapter. Lol

Thank you all for the lovely comments on the previous chapter! I love reading them so much 💕

I forgot to mention in the previous notes: this is set during a nebulous time in between ship three and July, so the gang can have silly little road trip shenanigans. Meryl and Roberto don't get taken to July by Zazie for an indeterminate amount of time, because I said so. I love tristamp, but it was way too rushed. My canon now, Nightow. 😌

*taps the tags again for emphasis* just so we're clear.

Anyway, onward...

An hour and some change into the most grey-hair-inducing drive Meryl had ever experienced in her twenty-three years of life, Vash was sweating bullets, Meryl was flirting around the edges of a nervous breakdown, the side of her seat's head rest now bore a permanent mold of Vash's fingertips that meant they could probably kiss HQ's deposit on the rental goodbye, and somehow, mercifully, Roberto and Wolfwood were still conked out. She almost had to question if Vash had cast some sort of voodoo Plant magic over them to keep Wolfwood asleep for so long, as he wasn't a heavy sleeper at all, but she knew that was preposterous.

...come to think of it, though, she always had slept pretty deeply with Vash around...

"Can you go a little faster?" Vash begged under his breath.

Meryl's pulse jumped in her veins. "If I go much faster, we would be in real danger if I had to swerve to miss a worm or something. We would barrel roll. This thing has a durable frame, but the glass would definitely shatter and we might be thrown out." She glanced at Wolfwood and Roberto, scowling. "Especially since I'm the only one wearing a seat belt."

If they were so scared of her driving, maybe they should take care to buckle up more often.

There was a crackly little whimper. Meryl glanced in the mirror to see Vash sliding his glasses off and mopping some of the sweat from his face with the sleeve of his jacket. Why was he still wearing that big heavy thing? Zipped up, no less, like it had been for at least a month now. Meryl's fingers itched to yank it off of him, to forcibly make him more comfortable somehow if he wouldn't do it himself. She could smell his sweat, but it didn't quite smell like a sweaty human. It smelled sort of like...like the dome on Ship Three, but salty. Salty greenery.

"Hang in there," she said as softly and encouragingly as she could, reaching back behind her to give Vash's knobby knee a light touch. "Just a little over an hour to town."

Vash was worryingly silent. He had his head leaned back onto the head rest behind him, eyes closed, face a combination of pale and mottled red and damp. This continued for several minutes, in which Meryl started to question if Vash was even awake, but when she looked closer, she saw that he was. His brows and nose were still periodically crinkling with telltale pain, his breathing far too measured.

She couldn't even tell what was hurting him. It was maddening. Stressful. So, she focused her attention on driving to try to keep herself sane.

Which worked for all of five minutes.

"Meryl," a weak, thready moan drifted from the back seat. When Meryl glanced back, the yellowish-green hue around Vash's tightly shut eyes and the hollows of his cheeks told her all she needed to know, even without the arm that was curled around his stomach.

She clamped down on her alarm. "Do you need something to throw up in?"

"I hate to, I...I really don't want you to have to hear it..." his breath hitched mid-sentence, then he gulped and let out a ragged sound after, scrubbing his flesh hand over his eyes and forehead, shoving his hair off of his skin. "Ohh, shit..."

If Vash was actually admitting he felt bad, he felt horrendous.

Meryl stepped on the breaks, pumping them lightly since they were definitely going far faster than was strictly safe, and at the same time, she cast her eyes about for some sort of container. All she spotted was the trash can—er, the plastic bag they used as a trash can, containing the few scraps of candy wrappers and lollipop sticks they had accumulated over the last day. Nevertheless, it would do for an emergency barf bag. She reached over Roberto's lap and yanked the bag from where it hung on the passenger side door handle, forgetting to be quiet in her haste to avoid even more of a tongue lashing from the dealership HQ had rented from. Protein stains from stomach acid would be impossible to get out of the upholstery.

As Roberto's snoring cut off and he choked and coughed and grunted himself awake in typical middle-aged-going-on-elderly fashion, Meryl sent Vash an apologetic grimace along with the bag she handed him. Of course, he mustered up a wan, reassuring smile for her, as if she was the one who needed comfort in this situation.

Stupid, selfless...

Roberto stretched with a gravelly noise that was loud enough for every worm in the desert to hear, then rubbed the back of his neck and tousled his hair with a cavernous yawn. Beside Vash in the back, Wolfwood stirred, his forehead knocking against the window and the cigarette that had been hanging on for dear life finally plopping in his lap.

Secretly, Meryl was relieved that she wouldn't be alone in this anymore. She wasn't quite mean enough herself to bully Vash into telling them what was going on. Wolfwood definitely was.

"Carsick, Stampede?" Roberto mumbled when he caught sight of Vash's slumped posture and his hands holding the bag between his parted knees.

A soft, humorless chuckle. "Something like that," Vash whispered.

"Don't blame ya." Roberto lobbed his thumb in Meryl's direction. "This one's driving could make a rally driver blow chunks."

Meryl rolled her eyes and scoffed at him, feeling jittery and irritable. "Oh, yes, such abysmal driving. So unbearable that you just snoozed and drooled like a newborn baby through several hours of it."

"Semantics."

"That is not what 'semantics' means, senpai!"

"Does now, newb." Roberto narrowed his eyes out at the passing sand. "Speaking of, you're driving awful fast. Slow down."

Meryl ignored him. He could lecture her later.

Wolfwood groaned through closed lips as he rubbed his eyes beneath his shades. That seemed to wake him up enough to process what Roberto had said, and he gave Vash a bleary once over with a slightly curled lip and a suspicious frown.

"You don't look so good," he muttered, turning toward him and resting his elbow on the back of Roberto's seat. "What gives?"

Vash didn't answer, head still hung. A glance in the mirror told Meryl he had one arm wrapped around his midsection again, fingers digging into his side. Was it his stomach that was hurting him so badly...?

Wolfwood caught Meryl's eye in the mirror, turning his dangling hand over to hold it palm up with a slight, confused shake of his head and parted lips.

Meryl shrugged helplessly. He won't tell me.

She saw his jaw flex.

"I swear, the day you stop hiding shit from us will be a cold day in hell," Wolfwood groused at Vash. "So? What is it this time? Bullet in your gut? Stab wound? Did someone poison you?"

That got a mild head shake, but no words.

"Well, then," Wolfwood said with cool, exaggerated patience and a slowly reached out hand, "just for safety's sake, I guess I'll have to exami—"

Vash wildly twisted away, crowding against the door like Wolfwood had threatened to strike him.

"Please, don't!" The words gushed out of Vash in a desperate breath that he immediately sucked back in between his teeth.

"Then tell us. What's wrong." Wolfwood's voice, having been a firm and borderline impatient growl, suddenly lost some of its hard edge. "We can't help you if you keep us in the dark, blondie."

"Preacher's right, kiddo," Roberto grunted. "Gotta be something we can do."

The irony of a human calling Vash the Stampede "kiddo" was lost on no one.

"We care about you," Meryl added softly, squeezing the steering wheel in a vice grip, praying that Vash wouldn't shut them out. Please, just cooperate. Just this once, you stubborn, wonderful idiot.

A loaded silence fell, only broken by gritty road noise and Vash panting. Finally, he made a thin little noise of defeat. Meryl's heart leapt with hope, but was smacked back down out of midair with an imaginary fly swatter.

"There's nothing any of you can d-dgh—!" Vash suddenly choked out a grunt like he'd just been shanked in the side, clawing his fingers into the side of Meryl's seat with a death grip so strong, it actually popped a few of the seams.

The air in the car instantly thickened, and Meryl, Wolfwood, and Roberto all shouted at once.

"Vash?!"

"Hey! Hey! Needle noggin!"

"Christ, kid, what the hell's wrong with you?"

Meryl stepped on the brakes again.

"No, Meryl! Keep driving!" Vash raised his voice over them. When they quieted down, he swallowed heavily. "Keep driving. We can't stop. I don't know how much time I have, and I would rather not...do this in the car."

"Do what? Stop being cryptic," Wolfwood hissed.

"I'm—! I'm not trying to...it's just not something I..." Vash reached up to cover his eyes with his prosthetic, and his glassy green fingers trembled enough to be audible, clicking against one another. "You're going to think I—"

"It doesn't matter what we think, you hard-headed dumbass!" Wolfwood exploded. "Tell us what's wrong with you!"

In the silence that followed, Roberto nudged Meryl's elbow.

"Speed back up, newbie. You heard him, we can't afford to stop."

Meryl did a double take at Roberto. "But..."

Roberto pursed his lips and shook his head. Reluctantly, Meryl did as she was told, even though it rankled.

Wolfwood glared a hole through the side of Vash's head. "Vash."

Meryl couldn't remember the last time Wolfwood used Vash's actual name.

"I...I'm...um," Vash faltered, wiping sweat from his forehead, clearly feeling cornered. Meryl's heart went out to him. "Well. You guys know I'm not human."

"Right."

"Uh huh."

"Go on."

"Plants don't..." Vash gave a panicked little huff, backing away once more. "I can't do this, you're all going to—"

"We're going to try to help you, Vash," Meryl gently interrupted before Wolfwood could blow up at him again, punching the cruise control with her thumb so she could focus. "We won't hate you, or be afraid of you, or whatever other nonsense your brain is feeding you." She met his gaze in the mirror to stress her point. "Okay?"

Vash's eyes were incredibly troubled. Then, they slowly closed. His expression was pained. Full of dread.

"I'm...there isn't an easy way to explain it, but I'm about to..." he gripped his middle through his duster, falling silent. So it was his stomach, after all. Meryl's brain zipped through a lightning-fast list of what could possibly be wrong, and still, she came up short.

Wolfwood silently rested his hand on Vash's shoulder in a rare show of sympathy.

When Vash finally spoke, his voice was so small, Meryl almost didn't catch it.

"...I guess...miscarry, would be the nearest human term."

Despite their low volume, the words exploded next to Meryl's ear like a bomb.

Roberto's eyes were olive green saucers.

Even Wolfwood was struck dumb, staring at Vash over the rims of his shades like he'd sprouted feathers and flown out the window.

Miscarry.

"What?" Meryl said hoarsely. "How? Who? When did you—?"

Vash's tall frame curled inward. There was something incredibly shamefaced in his body language, like he didn't even want to be looked at. Like he thought he was disgusting.

Roberto's eyes had hardened, but his voice came out more gently than Meryl had ever heard him speak. "Did someone force themselves on you, son?"

Vash's head shot up. "No! No, absolutely not, nothing like that," he said frantically.

"You're...you can...?" Wolfwood croaked, eyeing Vash's concealed midsection with anguish.

A prosthetic hand drifted to cover Vash's stomach, like he wanted to hide it. Shield it. "It's not exactly what you think," he began, voice low and trembling, but Wolfwood snapped, cutting him off.

"Really? Cause it sounds like you're telling me I knocked you up and you didn't tell me."

Another frigid wave of shock crawled up and down Meryl's backbone in a feedback loop.

Vash flinched and shook his head. "No. I promise, that's not what happened. But..." his face was already pink from embarrassment and exertion—from labor?! Meryl's brain shrieked—but now, the tips of his ears flushed, as well. "...it was...kind of...it almost...did."

Wolfwood blinked, slow and deliberate. "...what."

"Why don't you start at the top?" Roberto said, not unkindly.

Vash's shoulders squared, his cheeks mottling beet red. He buried his face in his hands, his posture tight and uncomfortable. A pained little croak leaked out of him.

Meryl's heart ached with every hard thump against her ribs, like it was embedded with glass. All this time, all this pain he'd been in...

She glanced at the GPS. Fifty iles to the next settlement.

Hang on, Vash.

Slowly, Vash uncovered his face. He looked so miserable, Meryl's heart nearly wrenched out of her chest.

"To make a long story short," he rasped, flicking sweat from his fingers, "this is something that can happen if I spend enough time in the presence of a suitable..." he cringed, and it was a full-body gesture. "...mate."

"Suitabl—" Roberto cut himself off, his lips pooching out in a soft "oh" of understanding. Both he and Meryl looked back at Wolfwood, who was looking more green around the gills by the second.

"Plants can reproduce completely asexually in the right set of circumstances, if they're really comfortable and they feel safe and well taken care of. That's where I and...that's where I came from. But I, as an Independent, don't work in exactly the same way. I think I'm supposed to be able to...I...I'm not sure. There's so much I still don't know, but...it seems like my body prefers to have a...p-partner. I guess for protection. So, uh...if I start...getting too close to someone..."

"...your body starts wanting to reproduce," Meryl breathed.

Vash's head stayed down. He wouldn't even look her in the eye.

Wolfwood stared. "So you...your body wanted me to..."

Vash ground the heels of his hands into his eyes, nodding once, barely. "Almost did," he repeated in a whisper.

"What does that mean?" Wolfwood sounded strained. "Give it to me straight. You know I can handle it."

"You...we..." Vash's fingers clenched. "...if it had been a day later, I would've ended up...fertilized."

Meryl felt lightheaded.

Roberto took a long swig from his flask.

"...I didn't know," came the gut-punched reply.

"I didn't tell you." Vash's breathing shuddered. "I should have. I'm so sorry." He stared at his lap with wet, reddened eyes. "When I realized I was...um. I was so afraid it had taken. But now, I'm sure it didn't. I'm not sure what would've happened if it had. If they would've still been like them, or...more human." His hand wandered to press on his stomach again.

"When you say 'like them...'" Roberto trailed off, sounding uneasy.

Vash made an unreadable face. He was still staring into space, like he was seeing something in the distance. His thumb rubbed his stomach.

"...a dependent Plant."

Meryl knew, in that moment, that this wasn't something Vash had told a lot of people before, if anyone. She didn't even want to entertain the idea of anyone else knowing his body was capable of this, because the direction that train of thought headed in made her feel like vomiting.

For a moment, silence fell as the gravity of the situation began to sink in. The weak air conditioner of the van whirred. A tiny, flying worm tinked off of the windshield.

"Christ in heaven," Wolfwood uttered under his breath, dazed and horrified all at once. "So we almost had a little needle noggin junior following us everywhere like a baby chick." He stabbed his fingers though his hair. "Shit."

Vash said something inaudible to Meryl's ears.

Wolfwood sat up, ramrod straight. "What?" He uttered, low and terse.

Vash whispered to Wolfwood a little louder. Meryl still didn't catch it, but whatever he'd said made most of the color drain from Wolfwood's face.

She wasn't sure she wanted to know.

Wolfwood took a few deep, measured breaths. "...okay. So, how do we help."

"How much farther, Meryl?" Vash whimpered, forehead pressed to the back of Meryl's seat.

Meryl did some quick maths. "A little more than half an hour, at this speed."

"Answer me, blondie."

Vash breathed shakily for a moment. "You can't do anything. There's nothing to be d—"

"Bullshit," Wolfwood snarled. "There has to be something—!"

"Nicholas." Vash's voice broke, high and devastated. "They're dead. Please. There's nothing you can do. Please, just believe me. It just has to run its course."

Somehow, Wolfwood managed to look both stricken and livid, his eyes wide and his dark brows going through various levels of scrunched before he jerked his gaze away from Vash and toward the window, teeth ground together.

Meryl's throat felt like it could snap in two. A hot coal sat behind her sternum, scalding her insides. She gritted her trembling lower lip between her teeth, tears pricking her eyes when she felt the raw indents from earlier.

"So we just have to sit on our hands and be helpless." She couldn't keep her voice steady.

"You're not helpless. You're helping right now, by driving," Vash countered, far too soft and reassuring for the circumstances. It made Meryl want to scream at the top of her lungs.

"So, forgive me for being straightforward, but do we need to...I dunno, spread some towels under you?" Roberto was obviously trying to act less concerned than he actually was, hiding behind his flippant, curmudgeonly façade. "My understanding is that miscarriages aren't exactly pretty affairs."

"Not yet, I don't think," Vash mumbled. "And...it's not exactly the same as a human. There's not as much blood. Unless I tear. I have before."

Dead silence fell for about five seconds.

"...I'm sorry, unless you what?"

Vash's shoulders slumped as if the weight on them had just tripled. Slowly, he unzipped his duster, shrugging out of it and using it to wipe his forehead again.

Wolfwood's breath caught on a fragile, aborted gasp.

A quick glance in the rear view gave Meryl a glimpse of a gently rounded stomach. Her heart seized, as startled as it was crestfallen. She held her fingers to her quivering lips to hide the downward curve at the corners.

Vash pressed his flesh hand over his belly. "Miscarriage wasn't quite the truth." His eyes shuttered halfway, dark brows creasing fair skin. "...stillbirth is probably a more accurate comparison."

Meryl couldn't hold back the wet little warble that crawled from her throat. Roberto's harsh sigh was undercut with a whispered "fuck." Wolfwood was as silent as the dead, barely breathing.

"The fetuses grow in flexible pods. Sort of like eggs, or...seeds, I guess. At least, at first, I know they do. They've never gotten past this stage. I'm not sure if they even can, or if being fertilized would fix that, or if I...a-anyway. It's always the same. They grow to a certain point, for about a month, then they just...give up." A horrible, tragic little smile veiled Vash's lips. "Now, all that can be done is to get them out."

"Father God," Wolfwood breathed out weakly.

"Vash." Meryl's neck suddenly felt cold and wobbly, like her blood sugar had bottomed out. "Did...did you just say 'them?' Plural?"

Vash hung his head. Wolfwood caught her eye in the mirror and grimly held up two fingers behind Vash's shoulder.

The tears blurring Meryl's vision threatened to spill down her face.

She gripped the wheel until her knuckles bleached white. A sorrowful, defiant protectiveness boiled up in her chest, the likes of which she had never felt before. She didn't care that Vash was an unfathomably powerful being older than all three of them combined; he was theirs, and he was hurting, and no matter how painful or sad or bloody or disgusting this was going to get, she was going to stay glued to his side if he would only let her.

After saving all of their lives so many times, it was the absolute least they could do for him.

Bracing the wheel with her knee, she turned halfway around and reached to squeeze Vash's knee. "It's going to be okay," she said fiercely.

Vash's only reply was that smile again. The worst one. The one that always preceded a tender reassurance in the worst of circumstances, meant only to keep eyes off of the terrible things that were happening just over his shoulder.

The same smile Vash had given Meryl a few weeks ago, before he had nearly screamed a hole in her eardrums.

 

⁌

Notes:

If you can't tell, I'm playing fast and loose with biology and canon, so forgive me 🙏

If you enjoyed this chapter, let me know! No pressure of course, I just love hearing reader thoughts 😊

Chapter 3

Notes:

You guys have really surprised me with the support for this silly lil piece of whump. I didn't think so many people would be invested! Thank you so much for your enthusiasm, it means the most 💕

As time wore on, the cramping pains that gripped Vash every seven minutes or so started visibly draining his strength, so much so that he ended up having to lie down on his side with his head cradled in Wolfwood's lap. Meryl couldn't help but think of how loud and brash and flustered Wolfwood would've been in different circumstances, but instead of spluttered protests and bronze cheeks blazing coral pink and threats of knocking Vash over his spiky head, Wolfwood was silent and accepting. It was so opposite of what should've been that it was honestly a bit unnerving.

Someone, perhaps the previous person to rent the vehicle before Meryl and Roberto, had left an old, weathered atlas in the pocket behind Roberto's seat, so Wolfwood pulled it out and used it to periodically fan Vash with when the pains came. Poor Vash was panting and shivering and soaked in sweat, curled up with his arms tightly crossed over his middle like his stomach was an open wound, and Meryl would've given up one of her own limbs to take all the pain away for him and bear it herself. He was suffering, and still, he was trying to make himself as small as possible, unobtrusive and inoffensive, almost certainly thinking himself to be a burden to them. Even when he lost the battle against his nausea and threw up in the plastic bag that Wolfwood hastily slipped underneath his face in the nick of time, it was so silent that all Meryl heard was the quiet, uneven spatter of thick liquid on plastic, then Vash's scratchy, profuse apologies through ragged breaths as Roberto passed a napkin back to him.

Whoever it was that had convinced this sweet man that he was nothing but an inconvenience to everyone around him, Meryl was going to find them, rip them apart with her bare hands, and revel in their blood under her fingernails, rubbing the sound of their gurgling screams into her cheeks like an expensive moisturizer. She never would've thought herself capable of such a violent thought before, but thinking of the immeasurable amount of injustice Vash had suffered throughout his life without a single complaint was more enraging than she could handle.

"Chill out, needle noggin." Wolfwood was busy tying off the plastic bag so it wouldn't smell. "It's a non issue."

Vash made a noise of dissent, coughing shallowly after. "But you all had to hear it—"

"You're literally the quietest puker I've ever heard in my life," Roberto scoffed. "Or, in this case, not heard."

"Give him my water." Meryl prodded Roberto's arm with the canteen, and he dutifully handed it back to Wolfwood. Vash was too busy to take notice, in the throes of another pain already, head thrown back against Wolfwood's thigh and face twisted in a naked expression of squeezed-shut eyes and clenched teeth that Meryl didn't often see on him. Most of the time, he weathered any discomfort in silence or even with a smile, but now, he was obviously in far too much pain to muster the effort to paste on his usual mask.

It was difficult to watch.

"Gghhk—!" As his pain seemingly crested and peaked, Vash jerked as if he'd been jabbed with a taser, wrapping his flesh fingers around the thick ulna of his prosthetic arm, probably to keep from ripping the upholstery any more than he already had, or, God forbid, accidentally grabbing onto Wolfwood and splintering his bones like dry tinder.

Meryl found that she didn't even care anymore if he damaged the upholstery. At this point, concern for Vash outweighed the importance of the damn van. She would pay for it out of her own pocket.

The worried crevice between Wolfwood's brows deepened. "Don't hold your breath." He softened the blunt words with a hand cupping Vash's elbow, probably a little leery of giving him his hand to hold after seeing him shred the upholstery like cobwebs. The hand-shaped bruises on Meryl's shoulder throbbed in sync with her heartbeat.

Vash's eyes popped open and he gulped in a few deep breaths, probably too quickly. Meryl could see his hair clinging to his wet forehead before he tipped his head back on Wolfwood's leg, limp as a silk handkerchief.

"How much longer," he whined. Not one of his absurd, theatrical whines to get a rise or a laugh, but a guileless noise of misery.

"Twelve minutes," Meryl soothed. "We can see the town in the distance."

Wolfwood cocked a brow. "And that town would be...?"

"A little town called New Moab," Roberto answered, readjusting the map in his hold. "It's not bad. I passed through a few years ago on assignment. Granted, it's in the middle of bumfuck, but it's fairly developed. They have a Plant, maybe fifteen hundred or so people."

Wolfwood sighed, placing the canteen in Vash's hands and steadying it so he could swallow a few careful mouthfuls of water. "Shouldn't have too much trouble getting a room, then, huh."

"I don't reckon."

Vash was still out of breath, but he managed an exhausted smile as he screwed the cap onto the canteen again. "We're going to make it," he whispered in abject relief, letting his head loll to the side, facing Wolfwood. Wolfwood answered with a curt hum, but kept smoothing Vash's damp hair away from his forehead, gently fanning him with the crinkled atlas. Meryl heard a tiny, whispered thanks, that feels nice that made something in her chest unfurl warm and fond despite the circumstances.

They were going to make it.

 

⁌

 

As Roberto had described, New Moab was small and quiet, boxed in on the north and east sides by towering red rock formations. Only a handful of people milled about in the dusty orange sunlight of late afternoon, the rest probably busy eating dinner with their families. To avoid too many meddlesome questions by the lookout guard at the entrance to town, they kept Vash lying down on his left side in the back to conceal his prosthetic arm, stowing his duster and glasses under the seats and dabbing a bit of makeup from Meryl's bag over his beauty mark. No sense in letting these people know the Humanoid Typhoon was in town until it couldn't be hidden anymore. Not with him in such a vulnerable, compromised state, practically begging someone to jump them and try to claim the bounty on his goofy blond head.

Luckily, all it took to assuage the gatekeeper's professional suspicion was a glance at Meryl's and Roberto's press passes.

"Alright, head on through," he said, handing them back their identification. "If you need lodgin' for the night, there's a couple inns four blocks down and to the left."

Meryl flashed him a practiced smile. "Thank you, sir."

He peered at Vash in the back seat. "Your friend gonna make it? Looks like he's hurtin' somethin' awful."

She rolled her eyes and flapped her hand with a delicate sigh-turned-laugh. "Oh, he'll be fine. His buddy dared him to eat a live worm."

"Yeesh. With friends like that, who needs enemies?" The man laughed, waving them through. "Get him to the inn so he can rest, for goodness' sake."

It was a real struggle to summon another smile, knowing that Vash wouldn't be resting for a long time.

"Will do."

Once they were parked at the inn and gathering their things to bring inside, they were once again faced with the increasingly serious reality that was looming over them as Vash gritted his teeth through another pain. (Would it be accurate to call them contractions? Meryl wondered to herself. They did seem to be getting closer together.) She gave the keys to Roberto and climbed her way into the back seat, kneeling on the floor and rubbing up and down Vash's shoulder, desperate to provide him some sort of comfort since she couldn't exactly stop what was happening.

Without his shooting glasses on, it was even easier to read the creases of weariness around his eyes, to see just how much the prolonged pain was taking out of him. A shaky croak slipped from between his clenched teeth, and he reached up to cover his eyes, as if he knew how naked the pain in them was.

Something about that little gesture of shame made Meryl's throat ache with the threat of tears.

She had seen Vash shot full of bullets, stabbed, concussed, lacerated, beaten, hell, she had even seen a group of angry villagers stone him, but somehow, this was almost worse to watch than anything she'd seen so far. He wasn't just hurting physically; he was brokenhearted, grieving, having to cobble himself together in between pains, his eyes dark with the kind of sickened brooding that Meryl had only ever seen after Jeneora Rock and Rollo's death.

He had called what was happening to him "stillbirth." She had a feeling he hadn't thrown such a heavy word around lightly.

"Good job," Meryl whispered when the pain calmed down and Vash gasped for breath, petting the back of his hand as his fingers slowly loosened from around his prosthetic. "We're almost there. Soon, you can lie down and get more comfortable. Here..." She started rolling his left shirt sleeve down over the bottle green of his prosthetic.

Vash's throat worked with a low noise. Wolfwood cupped his cheek, and he turned his face into the touch, breathing deep and slow.

"I'll carry his bag," Roberto grunted as he slid out of the van and stepped up onto the door sill to grab the luggage from the cargo rack. The vehicle dipped slightly with a creak under his weight.

"I hate to say it, but I think I'll need a shoulder to lean on," Vash admitted in a hoarse whisper, attempting to push himself to a sitting position on one shaking arm. Wolfwood's hands hastened to help. "Otherwise, I might not get very far."

Wolfwood grunted, fishing for the little white carton in his pocket and tapping out a cigarette that he would probably have sucked down to nothing by the time they crossed the threshold of the inn, lighting it before shoving his door open. "Sit tight."

Meryl watched him go, her brow creased in pity. Even if Wolfwood was trying his damndest to hide it, she could see that the situation was taking an emotional toll on him, too. He had very honest eyes behind those sunshades he hid them with.

While Wolfwood dragged the Punisher and his own ratty overnight bag down from the cargo rack, Meryl gathered Vash's duster and glasses, tucking the glasses into the inner pocket of her jacket and folding the duster around the pauldron so she could tuck it into her own bag.

"Hope no one looks too closely," Vash muttered, wiping his brow on his sleeve and gingerly pressing here and there on his protruding stomach. It looked painful, now that Meryl really took a good look.

Her lips pursed in a sympathetic half-smile. "It's not terribly noticeable," she fibbed, patting his knee. "I doubt anyone will give you a second glance."

Well. Maybe someone would, but they would never guess the reason for it. Besides the just-shy-of-looking-pregnant bump, as long as he kept his prosthetic arm covered, he just looked like any lanky, blond-haired young man in his mid-twenties. It made Meryl wonder how old he was in Plant years.

Wolfwood, the Punisher slung over his shoulder like it weighed three pounds and not three hundred, rapped on the window with his middle knuckle. Meryl scrambled out the door ahead of Vash, anxiously rocking on the balls of her feet as he slowly followed. His face contorted into a grimace as he swung his legs around to get his feet on the ground, breathing out a quiet "oof." 

"What? What's wrong?" Meryl asked, her hand hovering near his elbow.

"My back is just starting to hurt." Vash grunted as he pulled himself to his feet with the door frame, slipping his arm around Wolfwood's neck and flinching like he'd been shocked again. His voice came out small and pleading. "Can we hurry?"

Meryl really had to hold herself back from rushing the poor clerk at the front desk.

They received a few curious glances from patrons around the common room as they passed by with room key in hand, but nothing more. Honestly, Wolfwood got the most stares, with the giant, belt-wrapped cross on his back. Meryl sometimes wondered if anyone had ever taught him the word "subtle." Who had even designed that campy thing?

When they reached the top of the staircase that led up to the rentable rooms, a few steps down the hall, Meryl heard the scuff of sandy grit on the bottom of shoes that was Wolfwood and Vash abruptly halting behind her. Whipping her head around, she saw Vash halfway leaning against the wall with his face smushed against Wolfwood's shoulder.

"Already?" She whispered in alarm, backtracking a couple of steps.

She caught a glimpse of fair features scrunched by pain, and for half a second, she saw glimmering bioluminescence flicker across Vash's cheekbone.

She and Wolfwood exchanged a huge-eyed glance.

"Shiiit," Roberto muttered, tugging Meryl along behind him by her wrist.

They hastened to the room, with Wolfwood practically carrying Vash on one arm. Meryl shut the door behind them as soon they all shoved through, locking it immediately and exhaling a massive sigh of relief as she pressed her back to the door.

Away from prying eyes, at last.

Wolfwood and Vash stumbled to the nearest possible seat, a bed, and Vash nearly took Wolfwood down with him when his knees buckled, but Wolfwood somehow managed to steer Vash into landing on his ass on the mattress.

"Wolfwood," Vash warbled, thin and panicked, clutching the shoulders of Wolfwood's suit jacket.

"I gotcha," Wolfwood breathed out, and as Vash buried a series of yelps and whimpers in his shirt that might have actually been tears, he aimed a look over his shades at Meryl that was startling on his rugged face; a wild-eyed, indistinct plea. For what, Meryl didn't know, but she knew one thing.

Wolfwood...Nicholas...was scared out of his wits.

Trying to resist the urge to hover like a mother hen (because, according to Roberto, she had the tendency to do that), Meryl wandered and paced, taking stock of their room. The inn wasn't terribly modern, but the room was at least comfortable, with a surprisingly plush rug covering much of the hardwood floor between the beds. Their budget had allowed for an extra bed this time, and one of them was a double, both beds draped in what looked like handmade quilts. There was just enough room to throw down a cot between the beds for anyone who didn't want to share. A slightly cramped but serviceable bathroom sat across from the foot of the twin bed. There was even a little closet, which Meryl halfheartedly dumped her luggage in.

As she did, she heard the deep, ragged breathing that signified the end of Vash's current round of pain, along with a hushed, suspiciously wet "sorry." Meryl turned around to see Wolfwood leaning back, hefting the Punisher on his shoulder.

"That was a lot worse on my feet." Vash's hand was over his eyes again. Meryl heard him swallow. "I thought I wasn't going to make it up those stairs." 

"Can't imagine it's a walk in the park," Roberto murmured, dropping Vash's bag at the end of the bed.

Meryl drifted closer, wanting to help but unsure of how to go about it. Wolfwood propped the Punisher against a wall, saying nothing. Vash halfway moved to unlace his boots, but simply rested his elbows on his knees and hung his head instead, panting. Meryl saw a droplet of sweat sparkle on its way to the floor.

Or maybe a tear.

She knelt down to finish taking his boots off for him. Even with how horrid he had to be feeling, he still raised his head and gave her a quivering smile of thanks. Sure enough, his eyes were red-rimmed and glistening.

"I'm really sorry about this." Vash scrubbed sweat from his face with the back of his glove. "I...I had hoped to sneak away somehow before it happened, so you all wouldn't be forced to deal with it. I never meant to inconvenie—nn! Um." Wolfwood had cuffed him on the side of the head on his way by the bed, and none too gently. "What was that for?"

"For apologizing for something you can't control, dipshit," Wolfwood snapped, shrugging out of his suit jacket with angry, jerking movements and rolling up his shirt sleeves. "We're here now, and we're gonna help you get through it, so get that through your thick fucking skull already and stop groveling, you're giving me secondhand embarrassment."

Vash blinked, lips parted.

Placing Vash's boots at the end of the bed, Meryl sat down next to him on the mattress. "Well. He's as eloquent as an angry thomas, but the sentiment is there, buried deep." She gently looped her arm through Vash's and gave him a squeeze. "We're here for you because we want to be."

Looking down at her, Vash sighed, deflating.

"Don't think there's much use protesting," Roberto said with a shrug. "You're stuck with 'em. I might not be a terrible lotta help, but I can at least fetch things you might need if necessary."

"You really don't have to." Vash's smile was cracked with unspoken emotion. "I won't need anything."

Meryl tried to banish the thought of Vash going through this totally alone in the past, but the thought reared its ugly head regardless. Trailing behind it, though, was another thought that felt like a sudden slap in the face, and guilt washed over her in its wake. She let go of Vash's arm, placing her hands on her lap, suddenly uneasy.

"Listen, Vash," she mumbled. "I didn't mean to...I don't...if we're forcing our help on you because you're too nice to—"

Vash startled. "No...no, Meryl, I..." he faltered, lifting one hand in placation, but it fell back to his thigh, and he seemed at a loss for words.

Meryl searched his eyes, finding them to be unreadable. "Seriously, if you would truly rather be alone for this, we need to leave."

"I'm staying regardless," Wolfwood grunted as he lit a another cigarette. Meryl glared at him. He just blew a stream of smoke in her direction. "Sorry, Shortcake. No amount of your cute little stank face is gonna convince me otherwise."

"We should respect his wishes," she snapped, shooting to her feet.

"I think the fuck not. His wishes entail too much bullshit martyrdom for my delicate sensibilities, so that's a no." Wolfwood gave a too-pleasant grin, likely knowing for a fact that it would rile Meryl up. "Period."

She clenched her fists, eye twitching. "You're really asking for it."

Wolfwood cackled. "What're you gonna do, fetch a step stool and deck me?"

"Please, don't fight," Vash begged. At the same time, Roberto snagged Meryl by one arm midway through launching herself at Wolfwood so she could shake his head like a maraca. Wolfwood just leered at her, smoking in silence. After a beat, Vash continued. "Meryl, it's fine. I don't mind if you're all here, I really don't, it's just...I've never...no one has ever helped me with this."

Meryl's heart sank at the confirmation of her suspicions.

Vash wiped his brow on his wrist, shamefaced. "I've always been alone for it. So, it just...I don't really know how to act, I guess. But, you can stay. I...I don't think I want to be alone, if you think you can handle staying."

Meryl nodded vigorously, wringing her hands. "Of course. You don't have to be alone."

Ever again, her mind tacked on wildly, ready to tear the moons out of the sky barehanded if Vash only asked it of her.

Vash studied her with those blue, blue eyes, and it was almost as if he had read her mind, because an almost-smile tugged at one corner of his mouth for half a second before it faded.

"Alright. But, you do need to know what you're getting into. It'll be gross, and it'll hurt me a lot, and...you might look at me differently afterward." The last bit was whispered, like it was the thing that scared him the most in the world.

Meryl cupped Vash's unnaturally warm face in her hands. She could see patterns of alien light beginning to glint in his sclera.

"You'll still be Vash," she murmured, gently scrubbing the makeup from his beauty mark with her thumb. It was too pretty to cover up, and he didn't look quite right without it.

Vash's head briefly grew heavier in her hands, and his eyes closed in relief. Then, he nodded, lifting his head. Meryl moved her hands to his shoulders.

"If they have hot water, then getting in a bath would be ideal when it's time. It would cut down on the pain, and the..." Vash gestured vaguely, eyes pointed downward.

Already, Wolfwood was on his way to the bathroom to check.

Roberto stuck his hands in his pockets, shifting from one foot to the other. "Anything I can do?"

Vash gave him a weak grin and started to speak, but then his face went bloodless, his eyes widening in horror.

Meryl's hands hovered over his shoulders. "Another one?"

"Help me stand up," Vash barked at Roberto, reaching out a desperate arm that Roberto immediately grasped, hefting him to his feet and keeping his arm around his waist for support when his knees nearly gave out. "Meryl, get a towel, quick."

She almost tripped over her own feet in her haste.

"What's going on," Wolfwood, who was knelt beside the claw foot bathtub testing the water, demanded as Meryl brushed past him into the bathroom, snatching the first towel she spotted from the linen cabinet.

"I don't know," she hissed, hurrying back to the bedroom.

She fumbled and dropped the towel at the sight she returned to, but thankfully, Roberto dove and caught it before it could hit the questionably clean floor.

It looked like Vash had collapsed to his knees in the middle of frantically shoving his pants down to mid-thigh, with his prosthetic arm braced on the twin bed and his flesh hand clamped between his legs. Pinkish fluid dribbled in uneven ribbons through his fingers, adding to the dark, wet patch on the crotch of his pants, soaked and glistening in the light.

A monotone ring filled Meryl's ears.

"Blondie?" Wolfwood shoved past Meryl, sending her stumbling off balance. Irritable and worried, she shoved him back. He didn't even budge.

"It's okay," Vash insisted, a little too high-pitched, as he plucked the towel from Roberto's hands. "This is supposed to h-happen, oh, shit." His breathing tripped. After shoving the towel between his legs, he dug his forehead into the side of the mattress, his broad shoulders as tense as a bowstring, breathing harshly.

His three companions exchanged the exact same helpless glance. Then, Wolfwood knelt down beside Vash and rested his hand on his shoulder.

"Press on my lower back," Vash gasped out. As soon as Wolfwood obliged, pushing his fingers into the scarred skin near Vash's tailbone, Vash swallowed a relieved little noise. "Use both thumbs. Good. A bit harder than that. Great, that's—just like that. That helps. Thank you," he rambled, clutching the old quilt on the bed in his prosthetic hand. His other, he wiped off on the towel.

Meryl's feet dragged her closer. She knelt on Vash's other side and placed her hand on his back, lightly rubbing up and down planes of muscle and bumps of scar tissue and metal that she could feel under his shirt, unsure of what else to do.

Assumedly, that had been the breaking of some sort of amniotic sac inside him. Did babies normally come pretty quickly after the mom's water broke? She felt a little dumb for not knowing for sure, but she had been a journalism major, not an obstetrics student.

Then again, this wasn't exactly a normal...birth.

Vash was pale and shaking when he finally leaned back from the bed. Damp heat radiated through his shirt into Meryl's palm. "They're going to get a lot worse now," he rasped in palpable dread. A little of the old Vash slipped through in the drawn-out whine he aimed at the ceiling. "I hate pain so much."

"Coulda fooled me," Wolfwood muttered, then helped Vash stand when he moved to, steadying him with an arm around his shoulders. Once on his feet, Vash hunched over like the air had been punched from his lungs. Keeping the towel clamped to his groin, he pressed his other hand on his lower stomach with a pained breath. Wolfwood watched, his eyes lined with regret.

"I didn't mean to flash you, Roberto," Vash said with a cracked, manic laugh, halfway trying to tug his pants back up by the belt loop. His face was as red as the duster folded away in Meryl's bag. "My bad."

Roberto grunted, waving the apology away, already on his way to the bathroom to grab more towels. "Nothin' I ain't seen before, kid."

Vash made another noise that might've been a laugh if it hadn't been so saturated in self-deprecation that it was painful to the ears. Meryl almost missed the "I doubt that," he muttered under his breath.

She didn't think he was talking about the thick, ropey scar tissue and metal embedded in his exposed thighs. After all, the genitalia that she had only caught a fleeting glimpse of hadn't looked very standard. Out of politeness, she whacked her curiosity with a stick.

Once the bed was covered in a few towels, Wolfwood helped Vash step fully out of his pants—which Roberto volunteered to take to the bathroom sink and soak in hot water—and lie down on his side, with another towel draped over his hips for modesty. At the very least, Vash seemed to relax a little bit once he was lying down, his eyes slipping shut in wearied relief. Meryl couldn't help but fuss over him, adjusting the pillow under his neck with fingers that still felt a bit numb at the tips. If he was going to have to suffer, she felt compelled to make him as comfortable as possible otherwise.

"S'it gonna make you feel sick again if I keep smoking in here?" Wolfwood directed at Vash, digging in his pocket.

Vash listlessly shook his head. "It's not that kind of nausea," he mumbled, half buried in the pillow. "Pain related, not smell related."

"It'll make me feel sick," Meryl said matter-of-factly. "Sit by the window, please."

Wolfwood eyed Vash, then her, with a pointed are you stupid look that made her reconsider asking him to open the window when Vash had just said his pain was about to get even worse.

"I can be quiet long enough for you and Roberto to have a cigarette," Vash said, infuriatingly calm in that special Vash way that made Meryl want to pull her own hair out. "After what I've put you all through today, I would imagine you both probably need one."

Meryl doubted it would be just one, but she didn't say that. Just imagining the mental stress Wolfwood had to be under with everything that was happening almost made Meryl want to take up smoking herself, so she tried not to give him too hard of a time. He was probably blaming himself for what was happening; she could see it in his posture as he stalked over to the window, in the set of his stubbly jaw, in the way his strong fingers trembled slightly as he lifted the cigarette to his lips and flicked his lighter on. It cast his face in golden light, highlighting the distinguished hook of his nose, the angle of his jawline.

For a long moment, she watched him. Something in her heart felt...weighed down, but, strangely, not in a bad way. In a present way.

The spell broke when she heard Vash puff a faint breath from his nose. She looked down to see him watching her, his exhaustion-shaded eyes slightly crinkled with his weak but smug smile.

Her face and ears warmed. "Hush, you," she whispered mildly, running her fingers through the shock of damp blond on his head. It was softer than any hair she'd ever felt; fine and silky, almost feathery.

Vash closed his eyes like a weary cat receiving pets. "Yes, ma'am."

Little shit.

This close, she could practically count each long eyelash that fanned on his cheeks. He had such an unusual spectrum of hair colors; dirty blond undercut, cornsilk spikes on top, strikingly dark eyebrows. His eyelashes were mostly black, but sprinkled here and there with lighter ones, some even lighter than the hair on top of his head.

Meryl cupped her hand over his forehead, rubbing her thumb across his hairline. "I guess you probably don't feel like eating, huh. Think you could handle some water? You're awfully warm."

Suddenly, Vash gulped, his breathing speeding up. "N-no, I'm...I'm fine. Ow, ow..."

Meryl nearly reached for his hand on reflex, hastily correcting her hand's course to land on his shoulder. His fingers clenched and unclenched, nostrils flaring around desperately even breaths and his eyes tightly shut. Meryl brushed his hair off his forehead, leaning down to touch the lightest kiss to his temple, and silently fought with her own helplessness, rubbing up and down Vash's upper arm and wishing she could do more than just watch.

Wolfwood was a slouched, melancholy silhouette at the window, wispy grey clouds of cigarette smoke curling out into the waning daylight. Roberto had abandoned him after a couple of cigarettes of his own, giving Vash a paternal touch on the shoulder before he headed downstairs to the bar to replenish his flask.

Meryl had a sinking feeling he would be gone for quite some time.

She watched Wolfwood with a heavy heart. Two cigarettes turned to three. Three turned to four. In the end, he went through seven in the span of fifteen minutes before he ran out. As he crumpled the empty carton in his hand, he stood at the window for a moment more, gripping the sill, as if centering himself. Then, he turned around, tossing the box in the bin on his way to the bed.

Meryl didn't comment on how haggard he looked, turning her attention to Vash, instead.

Despite his ominous warning of increasing pain, Vash had drifted into a light sleep, with his head half on the pillow and half on Meryl's thigh. The corner of his eye was wet, clumping the dark lashes there together. She traced the pad of her thumb over it.

Wolfwood's body heat closed in beside her. She didn't have the energy to look up and see the hollowness in his eyes again.

After a wordless minute, his large, warm hand rested on her shoulder. Thank God, it was the uninjured one. 

She leaned into his sturdy side, lightly petting Vash's hair. Wolfwood's arm draped around her, sheltering her, thumb rubbing back and forth on her upper arm in a gesture that made her feel so safe, it compounded with the stress of the day and made her eyes smart.

A tear fell down her cheek, catching in gossamer blond like a dewdrop, glistening in the violet-pink remnants of light from the window.

Not a single word was exchanged.

 

⁌

Notes:

GOD I love writing Wolfwood so FUCKING much *clenches fist*

Lmk what you thought of this chapter if you want 😊 next chapter, things start getting real...

Chapter 4

Notes:

Warning: things ramp up a little in this chapter. *sticks "beware of whump" sign in the dirt*

Please enjoy 🙏

Somehow, Vash managed to stay asleep for a good hour. Meryl's already sore back and hips started stiffening and aching from the lack of change in position, but she didn't care one bit. Vash deserved all the respite he could get; as long as he was comfy and resting, she wasn't going to move a muscle.

Wolfwood seemed to realize this; he pilfered through her travel bag, which she protested in taken-aback annoyance at first, but when he handed her the novel she had bought a few towns back at a bookstore and hadn't gotten much chance to read yet, she clammed up, her chest warm, and smiled to herself.

Silly man. He tried his best to be gruff and indifferent, but then he went and did little things like that for people, something completely out of the kindness of his heart that was solely for their comfort. When Meryl thanked him with a soft brush of her fingers on his upper arm, he didn't answer, but as he turned away, she saw that the tips of his ears were red.

Vash was right about him. He was so good.

And so, here she sat, propped against the headboard, one hand holding her book and the other occasionally dropping to check Vash's temperature or pet his hair. He snoozed away with his cheek squished up on her thigh, his face lax for the first time in hours, forehead free of wrinkles, long lashes fanning prettily on his pink cheeks.

Meryl wanted to bundle him in a blanket and shield him from this wretched world that didn't deserve to even touch a lock of his pretty blond hair. How could someone with the nickname Humanoid Typhoon be so precious?

After pacing around for a few minutes, Wolfwood chose to spend his time cleaning the Punisher with a stained chamois cloth, brushes of various size, and a small bottle of unknown, oily fluid that Meryl could smell from across the room, a scent reminiscent of a mechanic's shop and fermented fruit and sandalwood all at once. So that was what she always smelled on him when he got close.

She decided she liked it. It smelled much more natural and nice than the sleazy-smelling cologne old men wore.

Wolfwood glanced up from running a bottle brush down the Punisher's barrel to find her staring. One dark eyebrow quirked at her. "Am I really that fascinating?"

Meryl smiled. "Kinda. It's soothing to watch. You really care about that thing."

"About her," Wolfwood corrected airily, hugging the long end of the massive weapon against him as one would tenderly tuck a woman close by her waist. "Give the Punisher the respect she's due, she's my right hand lady."

"My mistake," Meryl chuckled, bowing as much as she could while trapped by a giant sleeping puppy.

Wolfwood's eyes, unobstructed by his shades now that it was dark outside, drifted to Vash, who was still snoozing away, though not as peacefully as before. Two things had changed; his brow was periodically creasing, which probably meant his sleep was getting more shallow, and the Plant markings that had briefly appeared earlier were back, and slowly getting brighter, like a light bulb in danger of burning out. Meryl couldn't help but gaze at them, tracing her fingertip over one of the threads of soft light that seemed etched into his very skin, spanning from the corners of his eyes to his hairline above his ears.

They were so pretty, so intricate. Sometimes she forgot what Vash was, but at a time like this, with the bioluminescent figures emerging due to internal changes, it really made her think of how different they were.

Didn't matter, though. He was still theirs, simple as that.

As she was coming to the end of a chapter in her book, she felt Vash shift, heard a tiny, dry moan creak from his throat. Setting her book aside, she rested her hand atop his head, waiting to see if he was okay before she moved him.

His knees drew up toward his stomach, his back hunching, body rigid. "Ughh..."

Meryl's heart beat harder just knowing that Vash was hurting again. Wolfwood appeared at the bedside, kneeling down. His expression was stony, but his eyes gave him away, dark and morose.

"Gotta breathe, needle noggin," he reminded quietly. "You'll just feel worse if you don't."

"It hurts to breathe." The words left Vash's mouth in a tight gust, sounding almost petulant.

"Yeah. Bet it does. Still gotta, though. C'mon, in through your nose, out through your mouth, 'hee hee hoo hoo' and all that shit."

As Vash struggled to breathe deeply, shaking like a twig in the wind, Meryl gave Wolfwood a disapproving frown. "Be nice," she mouthed.

He just kissed the tip of his middle finger and blew it toward her. Meryl rolled her eyes.

The pain seemed to last a bit longer than before, Meryl realized with unease. It was probably at least a minute and a half before Vash went slack with an overwhelmed, pitiful bleat. Meryl wiped his sweaty neck and forehead with her beret, not caring that it would have to be washed.

"That really sucked," Vash whimpered. Yet again, hearing him openly complain was not only startling, but worrying.

Meryl brushed his hair back, saddened by the lines of toil carved into his forehead. "I know. I wish we could help more."

Vash wrapped his arm around her leg, hugging it, pressing his cheek to her thigh in a way that made her heart flutter through a sudden back flip.

"You are helping," he panted. "Just by being here."

An unsteady smile trembled Meryl's lips. The earlier thought of Vash enduring this completely alone in the past crept back into her mind. She couldn't imagine going through something not only so painful, but so heartbreaking, all by herself. Just the thought made her want to curl into a ball and cry.

Maybe Vash was being truthful. Maybe them being there really was making him feel better.

"Okay," Meryl whispered, brushing the backs of her knuckles against Vash's soft, hot cheek. His face was totally unblemished besides the lightest pink graze of a scar near one of his temples, and it was such a sharp juxtaposition compared to the rest of his body, so torn apart and sewn back together and covered in hypertrophic scarring and long, jagged keloids and hard metal grafts.

It made her angry to even wonder how he'd acquired some of the worse ones.

Vash reached up to touch her hand, silently grateful, then sighed, closing his eyes. "It might be time to run a bath if they're getting this bad."

Wolfwood immediately rose to his feet. "Can you walk?"

"Yeah...I think so, with help."

Meryl tried to help him sit up, but she didn't really do much good. A heavyweight champion she was not, and Vash was over a foot taller than her and ninety percent muscle. Wolfwood stepped in to help, and together, they got Vash to the edge of the bed so he could slide off of it onto his feet, anchored by Wolfwood's strong arm around his waist. He kept the towel clamped over his crotch, and slowly, painstakingly, Wolfwood helped him limp toward the bathroom. Meryl hovered at his side, anxious from the thin, stifled hisses and whimpers Vash was letting out every few steps, wishing she could provide more than just moral support.

As she trailed along beside them, her feet felt a bit funny, like they weren't completely connecting to the floor, but she ignored it in favor of getting a hot bath running for Vash. It only took a few seconds for the water to run clear of sand, then she plugged the drain and watched the tub fill.

"Hey." Wolfwood's fingers suddenly snapped under her nose, startling her. She'd been staring into the tub, watching the water lap against the sides, unaware of how much she had spaced out. "Go downstairs and get something to eat," he muttered.

She glanced at Vash, who was seated on a towel on the closed toilet with his head in his hands, then back at Wolfwood, scowling.

"I'm fine—"

Wolfwood held up a finger. "Ah ah. Don't. Just go. I can handle him for thirty minutes while you go eat and find the old man."

Meryl's shoulders dropped in dismay, disquiet churning her heart at the mere thought of leaving Vash for that long. "Thirty minutes is way too lo—"

"Hey, blondie," Wolfwood cut her off, speaking over his shoulder. "Are you thirty minutes or less away from you-know-what?"

Vash slowly shook his head without lifting it. "Way more than that," he rasped, his voice shaking with dread.

Wolfwood gestured to him in a silent see?

Meryl wilted. Okay, so maybe it had been six or seven hours since she'd had more than the rest of her coffee from that morning...and maybe she did feel pretty lightheaded. Just this once, Wolfwood could win.

But she would get him back.

"Fine," she grumbled, standing to her feet.

And promptly pitched forward. She would've face-planted on the hardwood floor if Wolfwood hadn't been ready and waiting to catch her.

"I'm fiiiine," Wolfwood sing-songed in a mocking tone.

Meryl's face burned as she regained her balance and swatted his shoulder, stalking away.

His derisive laughter followed her out the bathroom door.

 

⁌

 

Vash slumped against the rim of the claw foot bathtub, his forehead pillowed on his crossed forearms, submerged up to the waist in steaming water. Wolfwood watched him shift his hips from side to side, his chest and shoulders rising and falling with measured breaths that he slowly blew out.

He'd started doing that after being in the water for a few minutes, falling into a trance-like calm with every contraction that unsettled Wolfwood to his fucking core. Like the only way he was able to cope with the rising intensity of labor without losing it was to drift into his own little world for a minute, checked out from reality.

Another knife of guilt slid upward behind Wolfwood's sternum, twisting, cutting. He breathed through it. It was all he could do.

Turning his attention back to the washcloth in his hands, he soaked it under the sink spigot and wrung it out, shaking the excess water from his fingers before turning to approach the bathtub. Vash gave no indication that he even noticed Wolfwood's presence until he draped the cold, wet washcloth across the back of his neck, and even then, all he received was a faint, wavering hum, not unlike the breathy little noises Vash sometimes made in his sleep when he was having a nightmare.

...probably felt like he was trapped in one.

Wolfwood knelt by the tub, the thin bath mat not doing much of anything to cushion his knees from the old hardwood floor.

"That's the way," he murmured. "Slow and steady."

A barely-there nod.

Normally, it made Wolfwood feel a bit stupid to give someone that kind of frivolous encouragement, but for some reason, it just sort of...spilled out of him whenever Vash was hurting, like a pot of water bubbling over, unable to contain its increasingly volatile contents. Wolfwood didn't care, though; even if he wasn't exactly as good at the whole encouraging midwifery thing as Shortie was, he wasn't about to hold back. 

Vash was in this...condition...because of him. His bizarro Plant biology had latched onto Wolfwood as an ideal baby daddy, an emotionally constipated, unscrupulous bastard, just an all-around winner of a human being, because apparently, a shred of woefully clumsy affection and basic human fucking decency was all it took for Vash's brain to give his body the green light to procreate, regardless of whether or not said baby daddy was fit to be a father.

Wolfwood should've kept his distance and done his job. Not done his job.

The pit of his throat burned all the way down to his stomach, tight and aching for another cigarette.

With a shaking gust of an exhale, Vash raised his head halfway, leaning heavily on his elbows and panting like he'd just broken the surface of water. The fingers of his flesh hand were tight around his left ulna again, like a kid holding a security blanket. Probably because his Lost Technology arm was the only thing durable enough for him to squeeze onto without shattering into powder. There was a look in those endless skies that Wolfwood didn't quite enjoy. Like Vash was barely seeing what was in front of him, struggling to ground himself in the here and now.

"Finally over?" Wolfwood ventured, shifting until one ankle was tucked under him, bringing the other knee up to rest his elbow on.

Vash closed his eyes and nodded, and when he opened them again, they were a bit clearer. "That was a bad one," he rasped. Wolfwood could hear how dry his throat was, but he hadn't drank water since they'd been in the van, the stubborn prick.

Butterflies flopped around in Wolfwood's guts. "So. How much longer, y'think."

"I don't know. It went...so much faster last time." Vash's throat bobbed in a sticky-sounding swallow. "I was scared that I was getting really close earlier, but now I feel like I'm not getting anywhere. Can't push yet...not..." he reached underneath himself, and the way his nose and forehead crinkled in discomfort made Wolfwood want to frantically reach out and hold him together, like Vash was in danger of crumbling apart before his very eyes. Vash hissed, hanging his head, hair obscuring his eyes. "...not dilated enough."

Wolfwood frowned. "Uh."

Vash raised his head, and there was an odd tenderness in his eyes, shining through the gently-glowing patterns in them. He gave a faint chuckle. "I'll let Meryl tell you." His eyes scanned the room. "Where is she? I know she left, but I didn't hear why."

"She was lookin' peaky, so I made her go grab herself something to eat. And, uh. Retrieve the old man."

Something tightened in Vash's expression, and it wasn't another contraction. "Are they okay? They're not...too upset by all this, are they?"

"I wouldn't give a rat's ass if they were, but I know Shortcake ain't. She's got too big a heart to be upset by you hurting. Way too empathetic to be living on this filthy fuckin' rock, that's for sure."

Despite the harsh words, they didn't quite have the bite to them that Wolfwood had intended.

When Meryl returned a few minutes later, Vash had leaned back against one end of the tub, with the washcloth perched on his too-hot forehead. He was getting less and less aware, each filmy haze of pain and fatigue lasting longer than the one before it, and Wolfwood was at the end of his rope. He had tried nearly every trick in the book to get Vash to drink water, short of baby-birding it straight into his mouth. When this was over, he was going to wring that skinny fucking neck into next week. He'd never met anyone in all his born days that was as insistent on denying themselves basic human rights as this blockhead. 

With a paper-wrapped sandwich in one hand and two glasses full of clear water tucked in the crook of her elbow, Meryl walked up to the tub, handed Wolfwood one glass and the sandwich, cupped the back of Vash's neck in her free hand, and held the rim of the other glass to his lips.

"Drink," she ordered.

"Mmhn," Vash protested with his lips closed, turning his head and not opening his eyes.

"Vashiel Archibald Stampede—"

"I thought his middle name was 'The'—"

"—Shut up, Wolfwood—if you don't drink this water right now, I'm going to sit myself right down on this floor and cry until you do."

Blue eyes popped open, full of genuine dread. "You wouldn't."

Meryl raised her eyebrows. "Try me."

With a sad puff through his nose and a tiny, defeated curl of one side of his mouth, Vash parted his lips and allowed Meryl to help him drink a few swallows of water.

Huh. Maidenly tears: one. Wolfwood: zero.

When Vash paused in drinking, Meryl pulled the glass back to let him catch his breath.

"I can't go around making pretty girls like you cry, can I," he panted, taking the glass from her.

Meryl turned apple red. Wolfwood nearly snorted water up into his sinuses.

"Oh, just...hush and drink the rest," Meryl muttered.

A subdued hint of that signature mischief twinkled in Vash's tired blue eyes.

While Vash slowly worked on his water, Meryl gave Wolfwood, and the sandwich he had set aside with no intention of eating, an unimpressed look. "And you. Eat."

Wolfwood peered up at her, irritable. "What are you, my mom?"

"Oh, so you can dish it out, but you can't take it, huh? I heard your stomach growling earlier, you big, dumb hypocrite." Meryl set her hands on her hips and leaned down to glare right back at him, though admittedly, that wasn't too far of a distance. "I thought 'everyone deserves to eat and laugh'?"

With a surly huff, Wolfwood grabbed the sandwich and unwrapped it to tear off a vicious bite. "Happy now, Armrest?" He smarted off through a mouthful of egg salad.

"Finish at least half of it and I will be," Meryl retorted.

"Jesus. Get a load of this dame," Wolfwood grumbled to Vash, who was just gazing between both of them with near-visible hearts and sparkles wafting around his stupid head.

...at least the sandwich was pretty alright. Meryl had remembered he liked eggs.

"I thought about bringing you one, too," Meryl added, touching Vash's shoulder, "but I figured you might still feel too sick."

Vash cringed through a rueful breath. "Thank you for thinking of me, but you're right. There's no way I could stomach it."

Once Vash's water glass was empty, Meryl set it on the floor for him, then searched his face for a moment. Then, she dragged a stool over to the head of the tub and sat down, hugging his head to her chest. Vash craned his neck to try to look up at her. Wolfwood could see that her eyes were pooling up with tears.

A forlorn wrinkle appeared on Vash's brow. "Meryl..."

"Someone has to cry for you. You won't do it yourself," she whispered, wiping her eyes.

Vash's gaze fell. "I cry plenty."

Meryl just held him. He reached up a dripping, shaky hand and patted her arm with such gentle care that Wolfwood had to look away or risk something inside him melting permanently. He crossed his arms, side-eyeing the closed bathroom door.

"Where's the old codger?"

Meryl sniffled. "In the other room. He said he didn't want to intrude."

Likely story. That shitty uncle was probably just feeling ashamed that he had slunk away to numb his worry with booze. Wolfwood had been watching him all day; as Vash's contractions had intensified, Roberto had looked more and more antsy, leaning hard on his flask and cigarettes with a haunted look in his eye. Wolfwood didn't know what was up, but he would bet a fat wad of double dollars that this situation was too close to home for the old man somehow.

He did have a faint tan line on his left ring finger.

Vash's prosthetic hand suddenly shot out to grab the side of the tub, his head snapping back and narrowly avoiding giving Meryl a bloody nose.

Meryl stood halfway up, startled. "Vash?!"

There was a bright, hair-raising crack that pierced straight through Wolfwood's brain like a bullet, in one eardrum and out the other. Shards of porcelain broke off from the rim of the bathtub, clacking to the floor with a sprinkling of chips and powder.

"Shit," Vash hissed, yanking his hand back and moving to clap the other over his mouth.

Instead, on autopilot, Wolfwood intercepted it, slipping his own hand into Vash's palm and holding on tight.

Vash made a distressed noise and immediately tried to yank his hand away, but Wolfwood tightened his grip.

"I could grind your bones to dust!" Vash spat.

"Then don't," Wolfwood said plainly.

Vash's eyes flashed with incredulous, almost angry realization, mixing with the pain to create an off-balance vulnerability that hurt just to look at. "You fucking—"

"Whoa, there. That's some foul language you're using, Mr. Goody Two Shoes Pacifist. Not gonna call me a mean name, are ya? Careful, I'm sensitive." Wolfwood wasn't sure where this was coming from, but if it distracted Vash from the awful pain he was in, then Wolfwood would lean into it all day long. "Go on, pretty boy. Focus on squeezing my hand without breaking it."

A ragged, exasperated expletive that definitely shouldn't have made heat twist through Wolfwood's stomach tore from Vash's patchwork chest, but his pain must've reached a peak, because he just leaned his sweat-soaked head back against Meryl's chest and obeyed, his hand quivering like a newly-hatched thomas, squeezing Wolfwood's hand just on this side of painful, but never threatening to break.

"Be nice to him," Meryl scolded Wolfwood yet again as the pain faded and Vash went limp. She stroked his wet forehead as he gasped for air. "He's hurting, and I doubt you cracking flippant jokes is making him feel better."

"Bite my ass, Shortcake."

"I hate you," Vash hissed at Wolfwood, seething. "I hate you so much right now—" mid-sentence, his voice broke and became almost tearful "—no, no, I don't, I didn't mean that, I'm so sorry, Wolfwood, I don't hate you, I could never hate you."

Lord, Wolfwood's guts were quivering. That split second of genuine outrage in those electric blue eyes had not only been agonizing and intimidating, but fully deserved for countless reasons. But, Wolfwood just slapped on a lopsided grin.

"It helped, didn't it?"

Vash tossed Wolfwood's hand away with a hard swallow and a groan, throwing his arm over his eyes. "And you call me stupid and self-sacrificing. I could've maimed you for life."

He seemed to forget Wolfwood wasn't exactly human, either.

Wolfwood noticed Meryl touch her own shoulder with a pensive expression. When he caught her eye, she just shook her head and looked away.

"Still helped," he insisted. "Besides, I knew you couldn't bear to hurt my poor little ol' delicate hand."

Vash gave a weak snort. "You didn't know jack shit, preacher man."

"Sure, I did, you needle-noggined idiot."

Meryl interrupted. "Did it actually help, though?"

Vash's sullen silence almost made Wolfwood want to crow in triumph. He might have, if the circumstances had been less...funereal. Meryl was right; it felt wrong, honestly, trying to inject any sort of levity into such a somber situation, but he just couldn't help it. Stuff like this...it made Wolfwood grit his teeth and squirm away, like a worm under a boot, desperate to crawl back to the cool darkness of dirt, to something that resembled normal.

Instead of answering, Vash looked over at the mangled rim of the tub and sighed, smearing sweat from his forehead with his wrist. His hand dropped back into the water with a plunk, pressing on the painful-looking swelling in his lower belly. If Wolfwood wasn't seeing things, it had shrunk inward a little bit.

"The first one is getting closer."

Instantly, any compulsion for lighthearted banter evaporated. Wolfwood couldn't speak around the molten lump in his throat.

"How can you tell?" Meryl, ever the too-curious reporter, apparently couldn't keep herself from asking. Vash's head was cradled on her chest again, and he didn't seem keen to move any time soon. His eyes were closed now.

"I can feel it. Pelvis is starting to hurt more. Pressure." His hips squirmed, his brow puckering. "I'm not ready for this..."

"I can't even imagine," Meryl mumbled. She pressed the softest little kiss to Vash's hairline, and Wolfwood's stomach did a graceless loop-de-loop at the throaty chirr that resulted. Like some sort of alien bird. It made him wonder if Plants had their own language.

A question for another time.

Things continued like that for a while, much to Vash's chagrined protests. Wolfwood held his hand through contractions, and Meryl soothed him as best she could in between, keeping his forehead and neck wiped down with cool water. It was always surreal and disconcerting to feel just how hot Vash's body could get, so much so that it nearly kept the water from going cold. His flesh hand burned into Wolfwood's fingers and palm like a branding iron, his internal body temperature probably at least ten degrees higher than that of a normal human. A fever that high would scramble a human brain like an egg, but it was pretty normal for Vash, from what he'd said in the past. It really made Wolfwood remember anew that he was nonhuman underneath those boyish good looks.

But the heat wasn't the only reminder.

After a bad contraction that had saliva-diluted blood dribbling down Vash's chin from biting the inside of his lip to try to keep quiet, the bioluminescent patterns that had been mostly contained in and around his eyes up until then slowly melted into existence up and down his forehead and cheeks, then his neck, then quickly spread over his whole body. Wolfwood heard Meryl's breath catch, saw her trace her fingertips over the bright lines on Vash's shoulder, spellbound. The light refracted through the water, reflecting off the white porcelain times infinity and bathing the room in an otherworldly glow.

"I can't hold it back anymore," Vash whimpered, his neck limp and his head heavy in Meryl's hold.

"Oh, Vash," Meryl crooned, sad and comforting, gently wiping the blood from his chin. "You know we don't mind."

Instead of chewing Vash out like Wolfwood damn well wanted to for expending a fraction of mental energy trying to beat his own biological urges into submission for their comfort, Wolfwood just stroked his thumb over Vash's angular knuckles and said nothing.

In any other situation, he would've thought the markings were beautiful. Right now, the reason they were showing up was anything but.

The pain climbed, and climbed, and climbed some more, forcing Vash's voice louder and louder until he was sinking too-sharp teeth into his own forearm to try to keep from getting them thrown out of the inn. He kept gasping that his back hurt, his eyes wild and distant.

"I've heard of this," Meryl murmured to Wolfwood during a lull in which he genuinely wasn't sure if Vash was resting or just completely passed out. "It's because the...the baby's head is pressing on the base of his spine."

Well, now, that made Wolfwood want to throw up.

The pain forced Vash to turn over onto his knees, and Wolfwood dug his thumbs into the flesh on either side of Vash's tailbone to try to relieve some of the pressure like he had before, leaned over nearly halfway into the tub, himself. The sleeves of his shirt were getting drenched, but he didn't care. Not when he could be helping even just a little bit.

"It hurts so bad," Vash breathed hoarsely against Meryl's collarbone after a long, nasty contraction, sucking a miserable, shuddering inhale back in. "F-feels like my back's broken."

"Is that normal?" Wolfwood asked immediately, alarmed by that description.

Vash's head jerked in an unsteady nod. "Yeah." It was less of a word and more of a cracked scrape of sound. His face was buried in Meryl's shoulder, arms lethargically draped around her neck, and she was dipping her fingers through sunset-gold locks that were limp with perspiration. She didn't seem to care that her shirt was soaking wet, or that she was probably burning up from his body heat, if the sweat glistening on her neck and upper lip was any indication.

"I know it hurts," Meryl whispered against Vash's temple, one small hand massaging the cold washcloth across his shoulders. "Try to keep breathing nice and deep. Do you need more water?"

"Uungh!" A punched-out grunt tensed Vash up like he'd been electrocuted, and he started panting, shallow with panic, fists clenching into tight balls behind Meryl's head. Wolfwood immediately wrapped his hands around Vash's hips to keep up the counter pressure with his thumbs.

Meryl brushed his hair back. "Shhh, shh, shh...slow and deep, sweetie, there you go...good job..."

Vash suddenly made a muffled keening noise that lanced straight through Wolfwood's chest like a grappling hook and tore something vital back out from between his ribs, and he could've sworn he heard a tiny crack from Vash's prosthetic hand.

"Fuck," Vash cried, high and wet and wretched, fractured in half by a breathless sob and ending on a split second of eerie, spine-chilling shriek that made Meryl flinch and Wolfwood feel nauseous and frightened, like the sound wasn't meant for human ears.

He's in this pain because of you. All because of you.

He swallowed a throatful of broken glass.

It seemed like it would never end, but, after the longest thirty minutes Wolfwood had seen since the never-forgotten times of searing fluorescent lights and the stench of his own boiled blood, Vash finally seemed to start regaining some of the coherence he'd lost. That feral sheen faded from his eyes. His voice was tattered and rasping, and he looked worn to half a frazzle, but at least he wasn't acting like he was fighting to keep from turning inside out anymore.

Wolfwood didn't breathe a sigh of relief quite yet, but...it was a start.

"Thank you," Vash whispered to Meryl as she set the water glass back on the floor, mostly empty.

Wolfwood could tell it was more than just thanks for the water.

Meryl's eyes softened from the shell-shocked, faraway hardness that had glazed them over for the past thirty minutes. "You're welcome."

Wolfwood took Vash's hand when he saw his face twist up, and though he was sure he felt a couple of bones in his hand creak, Vash was able to hold onto it without breaking anything. That was definitely an improvement. Wolfwood wouldn't exactly have loved sticking his fingers in Vash's grasp during the previous thirty minutes of agony, when Vash had cracked the palm of his prosthetic and gouged what would soon be a brand new scar into his forearm with his own teeth. Wolfwood honestly admired Meryl for holding him like she had. Brave little firecracker.

With an exhausted breath, Vash let go of Wolfwood's hand to check his dilation. Now that Wolfwood knew what the fuck that meant, it made him feel like he had to hold his breath, watching uneasily as Vash pushed two fingers from his right hand far up into himself, his jaw set and his nose scrunched. Wolfwood tried not to freak out at the rusty wisps of blood and flecks of tissue that followed Vash's fingers up through the illuminated water like smoke when he pulled them back out with a trembling sigh.

"How's it coming," Meryl asked softly.

After squeezing his eyes shut so hard it looked painful, Vash's eyes opened halfway, red-rimmed and staring off into space as he took deep, steady breaths. "I'm about to start pushing. Just...as a warning."

Wolfwood's heart palpitated, undeterred by his efforts. He exchanged a look with Meryl, seeing fear in her eyes that melted into saddened determination. Then, Meryl hugged Vash's neck.

"We're not going anywhere. We'll be right here with you the whole time."

Vash gently knocked his temple against hers, eyes slipping shut again. "Thank you both. Truly. This has been...a whole lot less miserable with you guys here." He looked up at Wolfwood; the glowing blue of his irises was stark against his bloodshot sclera. "I'm sorry, but I can't hold your hand anymore. It would take way too much concentration away from pushing."

Wolfwood nodded once. "Do what you gotta."

"If you would, instead..." Vash's throat bobbed with silent emotion. "Let me know when you can see her."

A rough, invisible rope tightened around Wolfwood's chest, cutting deep into his flesh. He nodded, fainter this time, moving closer to the end of the tub.

Vash tucked his chin to his chest and inhaled a slow, deep breath of preparation that wavered on the way out, too close to a sob to be called anything but that.

The tear he dashed away from his cheek chipped another notch into Wolfwood's heart.

 

⁌

Notes:

😭

We stan Wolfwood x Punisher in this household (/j) I figured if he called his bike Angelina then Punisher can be a lady too 💕

Yes, that was a Sonic Boom reference. If you know, you know. I'm not sorry 😂

Thank you again for your comments, they are individually laminated and given their own plaques ❤️

Chapter 5

Notes:

Thank you so so much for your supportive comments on the last chapter!! Absolutely adore reading them, yall make me smile <33

Now.

*waves "beware of whump" sign even more insistently*

This is where most of the warnings come into play. This chapter contains copious amounts of pain and a lot of graphic description of what's going on/grisly imagery, so please keep that in mind!!

Longest chapter yet. Please enjoy 🙏

129 years ago

 

Vash's scream abruptly ceased when he heard a deafening crack behind him, whipping his head around, his sweaty chest heaving in panic and shaky cries escaping with every exhale. For a moment, he was sure he'd been discovered, that despite being in the middle of nowhere in an abandoned house with not a soul around for iles, he'd somehow been tracked down and shot at, because the bottom left glass pane of the barely-intact window bore a neat, diagonal fracture.

No, wait...that wasn't a bullet hole.

His brain was so scrambled by pain that it took him one more round of agonized shrieking and subsequent glass cracking to realize that it was him. His own voice was doing that. He touched his burning throat, and a chill of terror washed down his spine, shaking him to his core. What the fuck.

He didn't have time to think about it; whatever was slowly, inexorably splitting him open from the inside, it was getting closer, and it felt so large that he had no idea how he was going to get it out. There was so much blood in the bottom of the bathtub already, glistening darkly in the blue light from his Plant markings. His hips and tailbone throbbed hotly like they'd been cracked with blunt force, but everything felt intact when he pressed around with his fingertips. 

Fear pumped through his veins like tar, thick and searing. Wasn't this how Luida had said humans reproduced? Was he giving birth to a baby right now? Oh, God, oh, shit, holy fuck, he was too young to be a parent. He would be a horrible father. Uh...mother...?

The only problem was, he'd never even had intimate contact with anyone before, human or otherwise, beyond some kissing and fumbling around and chickening out at the last second. You couldn't get pregnant from that, could you?

No, no, of course not, how absurd. Besides, that had been over a year ago. He wasn't thinking clearly; probably because it was nearly impossible to. The pain was an expanding balloon in his skull, fogging his brain and squeezing out all rational thought in its favor, threatening to explode.

That begged the question, then: if it wasn't a baby, what was it...?

Barely a minute after the last pain began, another overlapped with it, so intense that pink and green stars flared behind his tightly-shut eyes. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't breathe—

Hastily raising up on his knees to lean over the edge of the tub, he burped up a thin stream of brown bile onto the floor, hanging onto the stained porcelain rim with hands that felt weak and limp and unable to grip properly. His ears were ringing like he'd fired off his gun too close to his head.

The change in gravity brought the mighty pressure deep in between his hips to a head.

A strained groan pulled from deep in his chest. It took several seconds to even realize he was bearing down, almost like he was trying to defecate, even though he hadn't eaten in several days. His body was on autopilot, his brain fifteen steps behind it. He was a helpless passenger, only able to observe his body in the throes of...whatever this was.

Again. Push again. Get it out. Quick. Faster. NOW.

The breath whooshed from his lungs in a wild, startled yelp at the unbearable pain splintering through his lower back like twelve gauge buckshot. Fuck, fuck, something had definitely broken; he knew damn well what a broken bone felt like. His throat stung fiercely with another scream. He dry-heaved, spit the glob of frothy bile on the dusty, sandy floor. The urge to push was so overwhelming, he couldn't have resisted it if he tried; his knees spread apart of their own volition, his insides wringing, his temples pounding hot.

Come on.

Was he in hell? Had his divine punishment for the Great Fall finally come...?

The pressure snapped to a grinding, excruciating peak. He pushed harder, eyes aching, face flaming.

His chest caved inward in shock and his mouth fell open, struck dumb by the mind-boggling pain that split his pelvic floor, like someone had taken a serrated knife and gashed him open, sawing and ripping through muscle and sinew. At the same time, all pressure suddenly ceased.

"What the fuck," he howled through a terrified sob, reaching between his legs to clamp his palm there. He had to stop the bleeding—

His fingers brushed something solid in the bottom of the tub, and he froze.

Clumsy, shivering, soaked in cold sweat, he leaned back with one crimson-sticky hand on the edge of the tub, staring with large, bloodshot eyes down at the...the thing that had come out of his mangled birth canal, the thing that was definitely not a newborn baby.

A huge, fleshy lump of white filled the space between his inner thighs, smeared with blood and still warm with his body heat. It looked like some of the beans that he'd seen in Luida's garden, pale and veiny and kidney-shaped, but a bit longer.

He pressed his forearm to his mouth, swallowing another bubbling gag.

Wrist trembling violently, he reached down to touch the thing. The tacky surface was pliable, like rubbery skin. It was still. Eerily so.

Unsure of why he was even doing it, moved by some base instinct, he dug his thumbnail into the lump, tearing the thick, opaque membrane.

Bluish-black sludge burst from the laceration he'd made, smelling of iron, of rot and greenery, a scent that kicked his fight or flight senses into high gear for reasons unknown, stinging chills up and down his arms and shoulders.

Pinching the membrane, barely breathing, he peeled it back over a solid object—

A razor-sharp scream tore his throat raw.

He flailed and jerked away, falling hard on his elbows with a limby thunk, scrambling with weak joints to crawl backward as fast as he could, his shoulders hitting the end of the tub, unable to get away.

Again and again, he screamed. He couldn't stop, couldn't cope with what he was seeing. His agency had been stripped away from him by the sickening nightmare unfolding before his eyes, leaving only a feral creature in its wake, wounded and cornered.

His voice fractured like a spiderweb, countless tones weaving into one unholy sound. 

With every scream, his Plant markings blazed brighter and brighter, evaporating the tears that spilled down his cheeks with hisses of vapor.

Blood welled in the back of his throat. Wet, stabbing pain punctured deep in both of his ears.

The glass behind him shattered in a burst of sparkling dust.

 

⁌

 

Present

 

Vash despised this part with every fiber of his being.

It was almost worse than all that preceded it, if that was even possible after the torment he'd just been through. At least he could turn his brain off and suffer through contractions without thinking too much, thanks to the unbearable pain wiping away most of his ability to think coherently, anyway. Now, though, on the other side of the transition phase, faced with the looming task of expelling a limp, lifeless, innocent little being from his body and burying her soon after, it was all he could think about, and it was crushing his heart into a crumpled ball of grief.

And there were two of them this time.

He had wanted to laugh hysterically when he had first realized it, lying in his sleeping bag in the middle of the desert, clutching a small bump that would soon stop growing, a bump containing the weak, flickering life essences of not one but two miniature Plants. Tears had cascaded down his temple and over the bridge of his nose, soaking into the travel bag underneath his head, but he had kept silent so he wouldn't wake the others, who were sleeping peacefully away by the waning campfire.

They always did say that twins ran in the family. His life was a never-ending punchline.

God, if You're listening, this isn't funny anymore.

Soon after having the thought, he had curled up under his thin blanket and begrudgingly sent up a bitter but contrite apology. He had a feeling Wolfwood's God probably wasn't laughing, especially since the trigger for this whole unholy mockery of the sanctity of motherhood happening yet again had been a shepherd of His own flock, completely oblivious to the heartache his gruff but loving touch had caused.

It made Vash sick to his stomach. It wasn't Wolfwood's fault in any way, shape, or form, but there was no way out now, short of cutting himself open and pulling them out with his bare hands, and even with his healing abilities, the thought made him woozy. He had to wait for however many more slogging, heart-wrenching days it took for both little life forces to fade and snuff out for good, then for his body to realize they were dead, then he would have to find the time somehow to sneak away and give birth alone so the others wouldn't have to know what a fuck-up he was.

It was bad enough that Brad and Luida knew.

The third (and last) time this had happened, after Vash had rubbed elbows a bit too closely with a beautiful, headstrong tavern owner he had been hired as a bodyguard for and had fallen hard and fast, he had forced himself to head for Home once he'd realized he was carrying, determined that this time would be different. He was going to save this one if it was the last thing he ever did.

He didn't even made it all the way there before she came.

Less than three iles away, with Ship Three a fuzzy splotch on the horizon, he'd been forced to kneel down in the bloodthirsty sands, drenched in cold sweat, and stuff the collar of his duster between his teeth. The panic of it all had him bearing down before he was ready, pushing far too hard in his haste, his ragged, muffled screaming vibrating the otherwise silent air of the open desert. Afterward, he had staggered toward Home on trembling legs, parched and bleeding and delirious, cradling the tiny fruit of his labor against his chest and begging the heavens that she could be saved somehow.

Deep in his heart, he knew she couldn't. She had been gone for days. Just like her older sisters, still and grey. Curled up. Almost peaceful, as if the membrane she slept in had been the softest, fluffiest baby blanket instead of her chamber of death.

That had been fifty-six years ago. He'd never been brave enough to get anywhere near someone romantically or platonically since. Not until Meryl and Wolfwood had barreled pell-mell into his life.

He often wondered if he was supposed to be able to carry these new Plants to term and give birth to them instead of giving them only death. None of them had ever survived past a month or so of gestation, but he just had to wonder. Since he couldn't produce energy like a normal Plant, maybe this was supposed to be...his way of doing that, in a roundabout way. Producing Plants that could. Maybe that was his greater purpose.

Even if it was, he still failed. How typical.

He just wished he knew why, but he was too frightened to let the doctor at Ship Three perform the kinds of invasive tests it would take to try to find out. Vivisection wasn't fun; been there, done that. 

Maybe his reproductive organs were damaged somehow from his countless injuries; he'd definitely been shot and kicked and stabbed enough times in the stomach to mess something up in there. Maybe his hips were too narrow, and his body recognized that. Brad had always said he was built like a spaghetti noodle from the ribs down. Maybe he was just defective, through and through. He wasn't sure what the deal was.

All he could do was pray that Nai never, ever found out.

A contraction corkscrewed his insides, and he pulled his thighs back and bore down with it, groaning. Meryl's fingers pressed into his shoulders; he closed his eyes, soothed by the incredible tenderness in her touch. His pelvic floor started aching in protest, so he quickly stopped pushing to rest and let himself stretch, forcing a stream of air through his lips. He didn't want to tear. He had torn horrifically the first time, losing so much blood that he'd barely been able to crawl back to Home alive. That day was still high up on the list of the worst things he'd ever endured, right up there with losing his arm and the reason why he had a titanium grate bolted to his ribcage.

His head fell back against the lip of the tub of its own volition. Meryl wiped his forehead for him, and when he met her eyes, he saw so much concern darkening her pretty, slate blue irises that it nearly cracked his heart in two. She was so sweet, so loyal. So spunky, with her casual, affectionate touches and her size-disproportionate protectiveness.

More than once during the last few hours, an unbidden whisper that Meryl might be the reason Vash was carrying two fetuses had lurked at the corners of his mind, but he refused to ever voice that hypothesis aloud. Meryl didn't need such a grim thought knocking around in her head for the rest of her life.

Despite this, and despite the distress he was obviously causing all three of his companions, Vash was relieved beyond words to have them there with him. How selfish he was.

"I'm okay," he murmured, reaching up with his prosthetic to thumb at Meryl's cheek where a tear had slowed to a stop. "Don't cry, doll."

Meryl sniffled, slipping her petal soft, petite hand into his. He folded metal fingers around it, distantly amazed at how her fingers were dwarfed by his own. So fragile, but so strong.

"Well. That's marginally better than 'shortie' or 'rookie', I suppose," she whispered. After hesitating a moment, Vash pulled her knuckles in for a kiss, and she made the sweetest little noise, a cross between an awh and a giggle and a sob.

Wolfwood gave an indignant sniff. "I called you 'dollface' one time and you slapped the shit out of me."

Meryl aimed a withering look at him. "You sneered it down at me during an argument, you mean."

"...well, I still meant it."

"Hmph."

Vash's head spun. He loved her so much. He loved both of them so, so much, and he didn't know if he would ever be able to say it.

In another lifetime, far out of the reaches of the death-hungry claws of No Man's Land, he would've been more than content to raise a house full of rambunctious kids with them both. Nicholas would be an incredible father, fiercely affectionate and patient, he was so patient with children, so genuinely good and kind. Meryl would be the best godmother, the kind no one would ever dare to mess with, empathetic and firm, with love and encouragement to give in spades.

Another contraction built, dissolving the fantasy like a hand chopping through smoke. Nothing so purely good like that could ever happen with the Humanoid Typhoon around. It was just as well, he supposed. They deserved better than him, anyway.

He was ready for all of this to be over, so he could cry his throat bloody and get on with his life.

While Vash grappled for breath after pushing, Wolfwood's hand rested on his knee, warm, too warm.

"I'm seeing something," he said quietly.

Swallowing dread and burning nausea, Vash reached down through the water with his right hand. Sure enough, he could feel the rubbery skin of one of the sacs the fetuses grew in, tucked just inside the rim of his birth canal. He cupped his hand over his petals, tilting his head back into Meryl's arms, desperately trying to scrape what little strength he still had into a big enough pile to get through this.

"You're almost done with this one," Meryl whispered, skimming her thumb over his left cheekbone. She sure seemed to like his beauty mark, Vash thought inanely, not even comprehending that she was wiping his tears away.

Would their children have beauty marks...?

Another push, and he could feel the hot-cold inklings of what he'd heard humans call the ring of fire. It wouldn't have been so bad if it had been for a split second, but it stretched on and on, a scorching, relentless pain that threatened to pull an overwhelmed whine from his throat. He gulped for air, longing for relief, knees quivering against porcelain.

"Good job. She's comin'."

A sickened, caustic laugh nearly bubbled from Vash's lips. He could only dream of a situation where Nicholas was saying those words with breathless joy, looking up at him in wonder and elation and pride instead of bleak, misplaced guilt.

None of this is your fault. Please, please, don't look at me like that.

On the next push, the bare light bulbs in the wobbly, slowly-rotating ceiling fan above them dimmed with a soft, crackling buzz.

While Meryl and Wolfwood looked up, perplexed, Vash bore down against his palm and silently begged forgiveness from his nearby sister, whom he was causing such soul-rending agony and sorrow. He could feel her travailing with him. Mourning with him.

Perhaps he could sneak into her quarters and tell her he was sorry in person before they left this town behind.

"Nick," he wheezed, head falling back against Meryl's shoulder. "Get th'...towel ready..."

He heard the rustle and flap of a towel being hastily unfolded, and it made his heart drop in sheer dismay. The worst part loomed over him, imminent, inevitable, and he wanted nothing more than for it to be magically whisked away somehow. His petals throbbed slightly out of sync with his pulse as his heart hammered away at the frightfully thin scar tissue under its little metal cage. Every single part of him ached, in as much emotional pain as physical. His scars felt fresh again, like they did when the barometric pressure dropped. Like he was one big bruise, blood gathering just underneath the surface, hot and sore to the lightest touch.

As if she could sense his mounting anxiety, Meryl's cool palm brushed his hair off his forehead, then the warmth of lips touched just above his eyebrow.

"You can do it," she whispered there, smoothing over his eyebrow with her thumb, gently, like it was a precious thing.

Vash's heart squeezed. I don't want to.

"I know, Vash. I know. I'm so sorry."

Oh. He hadn't meant to say that out loud. He reached up a shaking hand to catch Meryl's, holding it against his cheek. Her lips brushed his forehead again, then stayed there, comforting.

Wolfwood's rough, warm palm enveloped his knee again. "You're almost there. Just a little more."

Vash's eyes smarted on the next push, but he felt a surge of progress, so he kept it going past what he probably should've. He couldn't help it; he was ready for this to be over. Halfway over. His face burned red with the exertion of holding back from shoving as hard as he could, and he had to stop, heaving for breath against the sizzling pain that somehow stretched from his perineum all the way up to his navel. He cupped his hands over the bulbous pod emerging from him, tucked his chin to his chest, and bore down again with the dregs of the contraction, teeth grinding in his head, ears ringing.

"Easy, needle noggin, you—"

An abrupt falling sensation accompanied the intense agony-slash-relief of the heavy little pod slipping out of his body and into his palms with a spurt of blood that swirled up through the water. With a choked sob, he lifted the double handful of leathery, off-white tissue out of the water, streaked with blood-marbled mucus and stringy things that were honestly probably chunks of his insides, and gently, oh, as gently as he could, placed it in Wolfwood's towel-draped hands.

She was small. Smaller than all her older sisters.

To his credit, Wolfwood was either unbothered or had an amazing poker face, because he didn't look anywhere near as disgusted as Vash had been afraid he would. Wolfwood simply wrapped the fleshy lump in the towel, lightly patting it dry before transferring it to Vash's trembling, outstretched arms.

To a human, he was sure it was more than a little disconcerting. It certainly didn't look like a newborn baby. As Vash caught his breath, tears streaming down his cheeks, he was able to make out the shape of the tiny Plant inside the sac by carefully feeling around on the supple surface. There was the single stump that hadn't separated into two legs yet. Nubby little arms. Precious little petals curled at her back. The large, round head that made pushing her out such an endeavor.

His chest crushed inward by silent sobbing, Vash nestled the sac against his chest, cradling her, tucking his chin to press the bridge of his nose to her tiny forehead through the sturdy skin that encased her. His throat vibrated with a cracked, trilling coo, completely involuntary, a noise he probably couldn't have replicated if he'd tried.

He could feel his Plant markings pulsing, searching, and finding no reply.

Meryl's arms slid around his neck, loose and hesitant. She didn't say anything. She probably had no idea what to say.

To be fair, neither did Vash. What was there for him to say besides "I'm sorry, I know it's disgusting, please don't leave"? 

When Vash raised his head, Wolfwood's eyes were dark and strangely dull with a broken tenderness Vash had never seen before. He curled his arm around Vash's bent knee, holding on gently.

Vash sniffled, letting the air out in a wet shudder after. "Am I bleeding a lot? I c-can't feel."

Wolfwood gave his crotch a quick glance. "Only a little. Doesn't look like you tore."

What a relief. Vash wanted to go completely limp and not move for three days, but he knew he couldn't. Not yet. Not with the weight of baby number two still pressing on his lower spine, solid and unforgiving.

Powerful trepidation clenched his insides. He'd only ever propagated singletons before, so how was he supposed to know how long it would take to deliver the second fetus? There was absolutely no frame of reference he could go by. It could be fifteen minutes; it could be another day.

Terror bled up through his throat like fire eating paper.

He would never make it if it was that long. His strength was already running on empty. The thought of going through all of that an entire second time made him feel insane, like he wanted to strip out of his own skin and run far, far away. He couldn't do it again. He couldn't. Not without dipping into reserves he didn't like to ever touch.

And yet, he would have to. There was no choice. He passed one hand down his lower stomach, his blood chilled by how round it still was.

His wrists felt weak as he held the swaddled sac up. It took effort to push words out of his chest, like his ribcage was suddenly too small for his lungs. "Take her, please, Meryl. Put her somewhere safe."

Without hesitation, Meryl gathered the bundle into her arms, holding it carefully. "There's a little basket for towels at the end of the bathtub," she murmured. "I'll put her there."

Vash nodded sluggishly, prying his eyelids back open. He hadn't even noticed them closing. "Don't break the...pod open," he slurred.

He'd made that mistake the first time out of sheer, terrified morbid curiosity, bloodied and woozy and alone in the rusted bathtub of that run-down shack, and he would never be able to wipe that image from his memory. It would haunt him for the rest of his days.

Meryl paled, then nodded without a word.

He rested his head back onto the edge of the tub, floaty and out of breath, watching Meryl kneel down and tenderly tuck the little pod into a basket with the same care one would a baby in a bassinet.

Then...for some reason, everything went black.

His chest jolted like he was waking up from a sound sleep. The lights of the ceiling fan left filmy greenish spots in his hazy vision. He was...up in the air. A sturdy heartbeat thudded against his cheek, hot and alive.

He caught a glimpse of dark stubble on raw sienna skin as his eyes rolled back and fluttered shut.

 

⁌

 

"Oh, oh—!" Meryl shot up to her feet, her heart in her throat; as both of Vash's knees knocked woodenly against one side of the tub, she and Wolfwood hastened to catch him before he slipped underneath the blood-tinted water.

"Shit," Wolfwood sighed, gripping Vash under his armpits. Vash's head lolled to the side like his neck was made of rubber, and Meryl steadied it, cupping his angular jaw in both of her hands.

His pulse was slow, but strong against her fingertips. He was breathing, even if it was shallow.

"He's exhausted," Meryl whispered, saddened.

After shooing Meryl out of the way, Wolfwood bent down, pulled the plug in the drain, and carefully scooped Vash out of the water in a princess carry. Pinkish streams and droplets rippled the surface as they fell off of him. The change in elevation roused Vash for a couple of seconds, eyes half-lidded, head wobbling, but then he was out again.

Wolfwood glanced at Meryl, rolling his shoulder to tuck Vash's face into his neck. "Here, get a...yeah, good."

Meryl pulled the towel between Vash's legs, tucking it there to catch the blood and fluid that was still seeping out. Then, she toweled him off with a clean one. His skin had cooled off significantly from the furnace it had been, and the markings etched in light were fading, though still present. She wasn't sure whether or not she needed to worry about that.

Her eyes stung as she dried his stomach. Even with the first baby out, it was still so swollen.

She sniffled, wiping her eyes on her shoulder. "Let's take him to one of the beds. Try to make him more comfortable."

On second thought, though, she doubled back from trailing behind Wolfwood and brought the basket with them. She had seen how reverently Vash had held the little seed pod, even in his grief.

He wouldn't want her to be left all alone.

Roberto, significantly more sober than the last time Meryl had seen him, stood up from the arm chair in the corner as they exited the bathroom, alarmed. "Is he—"

"He's alright." Wolfwood hefted Vash up a bit higher. It unsettled Meryl to see how limp and quiet he was, even if he was still casting soft, blue light on Wolfwood's face and chest. "Just tuckered out."

As Wolfwood got Vash situated in the larger of the two beds, Meryl did a double-take at the clock. It was after midnight. Normally, she would've been dead on her feet at such a late hour, but she was far too wired to even think about sleeping right now.

She gently placed the basket in between the beds, up against the base of the night table. Roberto wandered over, and Meryl looked up at him. She couldn't read his expression.

"Only one?"

Meryl glanced over at Vash. With careful hands, Wolfwood was arranging his limbs to be more comfortable, supporting his neck with the thin pillow and covering his naked body with the quilt. The darkened smudges under Vash's closed eyes spoke volumes, stark against his pale, patterned skin.

"So far," she murmured.

Roberto's face tightened. Something like regret undercut the pity in his eyes.

"Poor kid," he whispered.

Wolfwood gave him a cool look over his shoulder. "Y'didn't seem to care all that much a few hours ago."

Roberto looked away, his throat bobbing silently.

Weirded out by the tension, Meryl decided to use the time that Vash was asleep wisely. She dug a dry, more comfortable shirt out of her bag, an oversized November University tee that was opaque enough to hide the bruises on her shoulder, then shut herself in the bathroom to change. She could hear low, clipped murmuring through the door, but couldn't make out any words.

When she peeled her top off, her stomach plummeted into her toes at the sight of the splotches of fresh, angry burgundy and violet on her skin, a perfect imprint of Vash's prosthetic hand wrapped over the ball of her left shoulder. The adrenaline of the last few hours had held the pain back, but she was really starting to feel it now; she couldn't lift her arm without it pulling on the bruise and causing a sharp, throbbing ache. Now that she could do it without anyone seeing, she felt around on the spot just to make sure nothing was broken, swallowing back a hiss and breathing steadily. Her shoulder blade and collarbone felt intact, but she wouldn't have been too shocked if one or both were cracked. She'd fractured her wrist falling off her scooter when she was a child, and this didn't feel too dissimilar.

There was no point in worrying. It wasn't like she could do anything about it, and besides, she had more important things to think about right now.

Moving gingerly and wincing all the while, she pulled the soft, worn t-shirt over her head, making sure it covered the whole bruise. After stripping out of her shorts so that only her leggings were left, she at least felt a bit comfier.

Vash was still asleep (unconscious?) when she emerged, heading straight to her bag to dig out and swallow a couple of pain pills. Roberto was absent again. She didn't ask where he'd gone; something about that whole thing felt touchy, heavy, so she left it alone. Wolfwood was seated on the edge of the bed, looking down at Vash from beneath dark lashes, emotion glimmering in his eyes.

Without hesitation, Meryl climbed into bed on the other side, pulling Vash into her arms, pillowing his head on her chest and resting her cheek on his fluffy crown.

"How long should we let him sleep...?"

Wolfwood pressed his fingertips into both eyes. "I have no idea. I..." he moved the heels of his hands to his eyes instead, rubbing hard. "I don't know."

Meryl reached over slowly, placing her hand on Wolfwood's knee. He dropped one hand to cover hers, grasping it and resting his forehead in the other hand. A calloused thumb rubbed over the delicate bones of her wrist, a little too rough. He wouldn't look at her; he often didn't when he did something overtly affectionate. She'd never met someone more allergic to being vulnerable than Nicholas D. Wolfwood.

She didn't press him to speak. Especially not when she saw him thumb a tear away like he was trying to hide it before she could notice it.

After a few minutes, he spoke. He sounded congested.

"How's your shoulder."

The base of Meryl's skull went cold, but Vash was dead to the world. He couldn't have heard.

"It hurts," she mumbled.

Wolfwood straightened, looking over at her. Slowly, he reached, and Meryl let him pull the collar of the shirt down her shoulder, exposing the bruise. It looked even darker away from direct light, nearly black. Wolfwood's eyes widened for a split second, then darted to Meryl's. She shrugged her other shoulder, her face creasing up.

"He didn't mean to."

She could swear Wolfwood had aged five years since that morning. His hand slid down her arm to grasp hers, giving it a squeeze of apologetic sympathy as he rose from the bed with a low warning.

"Don't even think about telling him."

"Hell no," she breathed.

For some time, they rested in the uneasy silence of night time. Meryl tried to rest her burning eyes, snuggled around Vash's upper body. Wolfwood paced for a while like an animal in a cage, furiously sucking on the lollipop tucked in his cheek, but finally calmed down enough for Meryl to persuade him onto the other bed, where he reclined with his arms crossed, never going more than thirty seconds without glancing over at Vash, who was still out cold. His Plant markings still hadn't faded completely, but they were more like the stains of long-faded pen ink on his skin than heaven's purest light now.

At some point late into the night, lulled by Vash's body heat and her own emotional exhaustion, Meryl slid into an uneasy sleep.

 

⁌

 

Torn out of a shapeless dream of colors and darkness, Meryl startled, blinking and squinting in the blinding dawn light that had fallen over her eyes from the window. She could just make out the silhouette of Wolfwood, asleep on the bed across from her, snoring softly. Her shoulder shrieked in protest as she moved her arm, nearly causing her to gasp.

All at once, she realized why she had woken up. It wasn't just the light of the suns that was piercing her eyes.

Vash squirmed down the bed out of her arms, a mess of thrashing limbs and otherworldly radiance, whuffing out sharp, wounded cries that had Wolfwood sitting bolt upright on the bed and grappling for a nonexistent weapon on the night table.

"Meryl!" Her name punched out of Vash's chest in a deep, dragging growl.

She scrambled to him on her knees, and Wolfwood, now at her side, had to steady her before she toppled off the bed, still groggy from restless sleep. Vash had his forehead buried in the bedding, lower body canted upward and thighs trembling hard.

"How long has it been since the last one?" Meryl asked anxiously.

Vash's only response was another guttural grunt, far too loud. Meryl's stomach plummeted into her toes.

"You gotta keep it down and breathe, blondie," Wolfwood hissed, just as someone from the neighboring room pounded on the other side of the wall a few times, clearly annoyed at the volume level at such an early hour.

Vash went silent. Too silent. Quivering. Gripping his ulna.

Realization slammed into Meryl like a solid wall, and her voice came out faint. "Vash, are you pushing?"

His head jerked, nodding twice.

"Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck," Wolfwood muttered with every frantic, long-gaited tiptoe toward the bathroom.

"Ghhurryyy!" Vash grated out, desperate and frightened.

Meryl slid off the bed and quickly moved behind Vash, one knee on the mattress. Her eyes widened at the sight of the opening nestled among fleshy pink-orange petals, the rim of it stretched into an angry red teardrop by the blood-streaked seed pod bulging it outward from the inside. Thick trickles of crimson crept down the insides of Vash's scarred thighs.

Her head suddenly felt way too light.

Wolfwood reappeared and bullied her aside, ripping off a strip of the towel he'd retrieved and shoving it into her hands.

"Stick that in his mouth."

With shaking, tingling fingers, Meryl folded the piece of fabric until it was a substantial thickness, pressing it to Vash's clenched teeth. When he gasped for air as he stopped pushing, Meryl gently tucked it into his mouth; he bit down on it, turning his face to knock against her hand. She climbed back onto the bed to cradle his head in her lap.

Without warning, he was pushing again, his rough screaming thankfully muffled by the towel this time.

"Whoa!" Wolfwood's hands shot between Vash's legs. "Slow down, dumbass!"

Vash cried something out through the towel that sounded like "I can't". Meryl's heart thudded with painful adrenaline.

"Well you better fuckin' learn how in the next two seconds," Wolfwood bit out, wiping Vash's inner thighs with the towel, "'cause you're about to tear yourself a brand new asshole if you don't stop."

Vash shot up on one elbow and made a wild, wet noise through his nose, shaking his head, his shoulders and chest shuddering with a sudden cascade of muted, panic-stricken sobbing that was so unlike him, Meryl nearly burst into tears of her own on the spot. She curled herself around his quivering upper body as much as she could, not caring that her shoulder screamed in the awkward position.

"Hey, hey, hey. You're okay," she said softly, holding Vash's head, pressing his ear over her heart. She could feel his pulse against her thumb, faster than a heart should ever be beating. "You're okay. Breathe with me. Vash? Vash. Breathe. It's okay. In and out...there we go, good job..."

As Vash fought hard to slow down his breathing, Wolfwood wiped sweat from his own brow with the crook of his elbow, staring down between Vash's legs with hard eyes and furrowed brow. His shaking fingertips were smeared bright red.

"Fuck's sake," Wolfwood breathed. "Just...wait, needle noggin. Just for a minute."

Vash was pouring sweat, but Meryl didn't care. She leaned around to kiss his creased-up forehead, unsure if the salt she tasted was sweat or her own tears.

"You're okay," she whispered again. "You've done such a good job. You're almost completely done now. Just hang on for a little while longer."

With a ragged hiccup, Vash ground the towel between his teeth and pressed his cheek to Meryl's chest, his back tensing, hunching. She saw his fingers flex on nothing, knuckles blanched, tendons rolling. Sweat beaded on his neck and shoulders before her very eyes.

For the entirety of the time that Vash silently fought the urge to push, Meryl probably said every encouraging word in the dictionary and more, pouring tearful, whispered praise against his hair, running her fingers through his close-shorn undercut, caressing down his scarred shoulder, over an old bullet wound that had torn a chunk out of his flesh. He had heated back up again with the resurgence of his Plant markings, though thankfully not to the uncomfortable degree of earlier, when it had nearly hurt to touch him with bare hands.

In the meantime, Wolfwood had managed to get an extra towel spread underneath him, and was silently waiting with a gentle hand resting on Vash's calf.

Suddenly, Vash moaned through his nose and reached back to paw his hand against Wolfwood's leg, as if in warning. Wolfwood slid a bit further behind him on the bed, reaching up.

"Alright. Steady."

Vash spread his knees a bit further apart, arching his back and pressing his crotch down, down, down into Wolfwood's hand. He quivered with herculean effort in Meryl's arms.

"That's the way," Wolfwood murmured.

A rough exhale gushed from Vash's nose, immediately sucked back in and held. His voice creaked in his throat.

Sweat prickled Meryl's scalp.

When nothing had happened four pushes later and Vash was clearly running on fumes, she gave Wolfwood an anxious look.

His lips pressed together in a grim line. "This one's...bigger."

Meryl swallowed the sour lump that threatened to choke her.

Vash didn't deserve this. He deserved only the best, yet life insisted on dealing him the worst hands possible. It made Meryl want to shake her fists at the sky and scream, at God, at the universe, at whoever kept allowing this kind-hearted angel to go through such unspeakable hell.

It wasn't fair. Nothing on this godforsaken planet was.

Vash suddenly jerked in her arms, coughing a wet, strained noise through the towel that turned into a gravel-filled roar that vibrated the very air around them, though the bone saw edge to it was blunted by the towel in his mouth. Another pound on the wall, along with muffled yelling. At the same time, Meryl saw Wolfwood bare his teeth in a sympathetic wince, his brows low over his eyes. A bead of sweat traveled down his temple, catching in his eyebrow.

"Widest part," Wolfwood muttered. "Keep breathin'."

Quick, shallow panting puffed from Vash's nose. His eyes welled up, glazed and staring far away. Meryl buried her fingers in his hair, pressing her trembling mouth there.

"Come on," she begged under her breath.

Vash went completely rigid, then seized up in a violent, full-body shudder, eyes tightly shut and tears slipping down his cheeks. The towel fell from his mouth in a silent scream; Meryl heard a slick noise and a wet spatter, and Vash collapsed across her lap in a boneless, twitching heap of sweaty flesh and chest-caving sobs. His weight nearly threw her backwards, but she did her best to stay upright and keep her arms around him.

She couldn't hold back a shocked gasp.

The fetal sac cradled in Wolfwood's blood-smeared hands was nearly twice the size of the first one, longer and with a bigger circumference, like it was further developed than the first one somehow. She swore she could make out a vaguely infant-shaped mass inside.

Her stomach turned.

She wanted to keep the encouraging words flowing, to tell Vash he'd done a good job, to tell him he could finally rest, to say how proud she was of him, but they stuck in her throat like a dry pill, refusing to budge. As she stared through the second seed pod, it felt like there weren't any words of comfort or soothing that would be adequate anymore. She'd said them all a hundred times, and now, they felt thin and porous, like a sieve, with no hope of catching or containing the agony and grief Vash had been put through against his will.

Instead, she just held him tightly while he cried, pressing trembling lips to the crown of his head.

Once the sac had been hastily bundled in a towel, Wolfwood nudged Vash's knees apart to tuck a fresh one against his crotch with that same, out-of-character gentleness that made Meryl feel off-balance and out-of-body, like this was all a cruel dream.

She was already mentally drafting a billing request to HQ for all the inn's towels that had been casualties.

"Not too much external tearing, but internal might be another story. You're bleeding pretty steadily." Wolfwood draped another towel over Vash's hips. "Will that heal by itself?"

Slowly, as if merely moving was excruciating, Vash turned onto his side and sucked a staccato, hiccupping breath in. Meryl could see that his Plant markings were already beginning to fade.

"Yeah," he croaked, huffing out a sob. His head was heavy and damp on Meryl's thigh. "Sooner or l-later." His watery blue eye cracked open, sending another tear sliding over the bridge of his nose. He looked down at Wolfwood, and one of his limp hands lifted a few inches off the bed, beseeching. "C-can I...both of them...?"

With something almost fragile glinting in his eyes, Wolfwood gathered both swaddled pods and nestled them against Vash's front. The size difference between the fleshy sacs was stark. How had Vash been hiding both of those in his lanky, noodly middle? Perhaps his abdominal muscles had kept him from showing a lot...?

Vash's flesh elbow tucked around the pods, hugging them with heartbreaking tenderness against his chest. He dipped his chin to press quivering lips to the second pod.

Meryl wasn't certain, but it sounded like he whispered, "I'm sorry," and it stung her eyes and nose with fresh, hot tears. Even Wolfwood was obviously bogged down by emotion; he sat behind Vash, hand on his shoulder, and drew Meryl to him with the other arm with surprising ease. She went without complaint, slipping her arm behind his back and stroking Vash's hair with the other hand.

With an inward jolt of surprise, she realized that her fingers had uncovered a pitch black lock of hair about the width of a pencil, so black that it looked like it absorbed all the light around it, hidden up underneath the cornsilk yellow on the right side of Vash's head. Meryl was nearly positive that it had all been the same color before.

A sniffle, then a bitter little laugh cracked and wobbled in the air.

"Fuck this."

Despite having heard it already, Meryl startled at the sound of the expletive leaving Vash's lips in a hiss. Before today, she'd barely ever heard him swear at all. It was like his outer self had been stripped away by this awful labor, layer by thin layer. All his false bravado was gone, replaced by indignant grief and anger and a world-worn, ancient tiredness that made something in Meryl's stomach feel tiny and almost afraid. Like...this was him. She was seeing the real Vash the Stampede, or at least, the most of him she'd ever seen unobscured by a happy-go-lucky mask. A kind man with a heart of blown glass, beaten down by circumstances, stomped to a pulp under the feet of fate time and time again.

And yet, when he looked up at both of them, he smiled. The worst smile, terrible and beautiful.

"Maybe in another life," he rasped, his voice whistling.

Somehow, Meryl knew exactly what he meant, so much so that it made her break down into hoarse sobbing.

"How can you smile?" She angrily smeared her tears away, even as they were replaced by more. "Even after all that, a-and you're still bleeding, and you're hurting, and..."

Vash's smile never wavered. In fact, it grew even sweeter, more serene. "Because right now, in this moment, you're both here with me. And that's more than I could ever hope to deserve."

Wolfwood's hand tightened on his shoulder. He said nothing, but Meryl saw him turn his face away to hide, the tendons under his jaw flexing with effort. Vash slipped his hand underneath Wolfwood's, holding it as gently as one of Luida's flowers. Wolfwood looked back at him, eyes red and wet.

"Nicholas," Vash whispered, reaching one long arm up to touch Wolfwood's cheek, where a tear had caught on the scraggly beginnings of the beard he hadn't been able to shave yet. "It's okay. Please, don't cry."

Meryl took Wolfwood's strong, brown hand, bringing it to her lips to kiss his bony knuckles. She'd never kissed any part of him before, and he couldn't have looked more surprised and devastated if she'd backhanded him across the face.

All the words she wanted to say and couldn't were in that kiss.

It's okay. It's not your fault. Don't blame yourself. Vash doesn't want you to.

We love you.

She highly doubted she would ever be able to say those words out loud. No Man's Land didn't usually allow for such things. It took and took and took until there was nothing left to take. 

But, with Wolfwood's arm around her and Vash's head in her lap, she wasn't sure it mattered if she said it or not.

They knew.

 

⁌

 

They buried the seeds a day later, once they had helped Vash bathe and he'd slept for several hours and was back on his feet, on the road to being healed. He wasn't...chipper, exactly, but the tears and raw emotion of the previous day were nowhere to be seen. He was back to faux smiles and I'm fines, even while he and Wolfwood dug two tiny graves a few iles outside of New Moab, in the dilapidated shelter of what must've once been a house.

Wolfwood almost preferred his tears. At least they told the truth.

Roberto and Meryl were standing a few feet away. Meryl had removed her beret, wringing it between her hands. Her eyes were wet. Wolfwood had never seen her cry so much in so little time, and he hoped he never had to again. Roberto, who had fumbled through a regretful apology earlier that morning for his disappearing act, had one hand stuck somberly in his pocket, with the other hand rested on Meryl's shoulder in a protective, paternal way.

Wolfwood's guess had been correct about him, as he'd known it would be. No Man's Land had taken its pound of flesh, two times over, and the wounds had never scabbed over.

As Vash held both cloth-wrapped seed pods to his chest, he kissed them both, feather-light, before he nestled them in their final resting places with heartbreaking care.

Wolfwood knelt down, helping Vash cover each pod and smooth the sand over them. Then, once it was done, he stood to his feet, wedged the Punisher into the sand, crossed himself, and withdrew his vial of holy water.

Despite his admittedly lackluster undertaking skills, he'd never forgotten the last rites for a child. Not after Livio. It was as good as burned into his brain.

"In this, our moment of sorrow, the Lord is in our midst and comforts us with His Word: Blessed are the sorrowful; they shall be consoled." Wolfwood wet his fingers, sprinkling over both graves. He had to grit his teeth and swallow. If his voice shook the slightest bit, well, no one commented, so it didn't actually happen. "May you safely return to Him who formed you from the dust of the earth. May the angels and all the saints come to meet you as you go forth from this life."

He felt Vash's eyes on him as he knelt down, clasping his hands together genuinely for the first time in years.

"Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.
May they both rest in Your everlasting peace. Amen."

As Wolfwood rose to his feet and crossed himself for the final time, there was a complicated expression on Vash's face, dazed bewilderment crossed with something unspeakably tender.

"Thank you," he said softly, so sincere that Wolfwood had to look away.

"Just doing my job." The words stung his throat like acid.

After a moment of contemplative silence only broken by the mournful whistle of desert wind, Vash spoke again.

"You didn't really have to, though." Wolfwood looked down at him; he was staring off into space, somewhere on the horizon, fingers interlocked in his lap. "I...they weren't human."

Wolfwood sighed and shoved his hands in his pockets, wishing that he felt heated and incredulous, like he usually did when Vash dehumanized himself, instead of just empty.

He gnawed the inside of his cheek as he studied Vash in silence. The listless way he was rubbing the sides of his mismatched thumbs together. The defeated slump to his broad shoulders that no plastic smile could ever fully hide. Those sad, sad eyes. The wind ruffled his hair, and Wolfwood caught a glimpse of coal black among downy blond that made him narrow his eyes in slight confusion. How had he never noticed that before...?

"...ain't gotta be human to have a soul the Lord loves," he finally said, hoping Vash caught his meaning.

Judging by the frail, but genuine smile, it seemed like he did.

Wolfwood offered Vash his hand to pull him up, unable to help but notice the cautious way he pushed himself to his feet, how he held his breath with the slightest wince, hand wandering to his lower back.

"C'mon." Wolfwood dug a cigarette out and lit it. "We should make tracks."

As they walked back toward the van and Meryl welcomed Vash with a tender hug around his waist, Wolfwood looked back over his shoulder.

The sand didn't even look like it had been displaced. Already, the wind had disguised the graves completely, blowing the sand into a uniform surface, like they'd never existed.

But Wolfwood would always know they had.

A heavy pit opened up low in his gut, wide and painful.

Soon, Wolfwood would deliver Vash into the hands of his doom, a willing lamb to the slaughter. The thin beams of happiness that broke through the grey skies of this journey would become a distant memory, and Wolfwood would...he didn't know, really. Try to move on, he supposed. Find a way to live with himself.

...as if. No matter how much he could try to forget, Vash the Stampede's fingerprints would be all over his heart until the day he died, gently pressing, holding, caressing, reminding.

A soundless laugh twitched Nicholas' ribs inward, and he turned away to follow the others, leaving a curl of smoke in his wake.

...in another life, huh.

...yeah. Maybe.

 

⁌

Notes:

Hmm...is it just me, or did the chapter count go up by one...?

🙂

Give me 2 weeks at most.

Let me know if you liked it ❤️💔

Edit: just so I'm not giving anyone false expectations, this is technically the "true" end of the fic. As far as I'm concerned, things proceed as they do in tristamp from this point. The next chapter will be a (very long) epilogue, which will function like an extra, canon-divergent "optional end". Think of a visual novel with its branching pathways. 😊 That's all I'll say 🤐 okaybye! *flies away*

Chapter 6: another life

Notes:

*shows up approximately two weeks later with starbucks*

AHAHAHA, will you look at that? The chapter count went up again! That's craaaazy. ...this is the last time, I swear 😂

Okay. Let me set the stage.

After the previous chapter, everything happens exactly as it does during the tristamp finale, and Vash lives with Sheryl and Lina for two years. From there, this becomes a canon divergence, with a few manga references thrown in here and there.

Knives? Knives is dead and gone. Legato? Dunno him. Zazie? Who tf is that. Gung-ho Guns? Bye. We ain't worrying about those guys. This is just a self-indulgent, alternate ending to the story. I said this before in the notes of chapter 5, but think of it like a visual novel with several different endings. The previous ending to chapter 5 is the "canon ending" of this story. We're on a parallel string in the timeline now. *poses like Okabe from Steins;Gate*

I've had immense fun writing this so far. Please enjoy ❤️

P. S. Bullshit pseudoscience ahead, I am neither a gynecologist, a biochemist, or an endocrinologist. LOL

3 years later

 

Even on the arid planet of No Man's Land, with most of the water deep underground, Vash had nearly been drowned before.

Apparently unwilling to dirty their hands by shooting him in the back of the head for his bounty, a couple of friendly guys in a no-name town had invited him to have a drink with them. Vash had been far too trusting, but in his defense, he had just saved their bar from a holdup, and they really had seemed genuinely grateful and kind. One of them slipped concentrated worm venom into his drink in between shots, slowing his reaction time and blurring his vision, and the next thing he knew, his head was submerged in a nearby thomas trough.

Of all the ways he'd nearly bitten the dust in his long life, that was still one of the scariest. He'd desperately tried to hold his breath, but one of them had kicked him in the stomach, causing him to gasp, and the stabbing, tearing agony in his lungs as they filled with water was a sensation that still liked to visit him in his dreams. He would never forget the overwhelming panic that had exploded through his veins when he'd realized he was about to die, that no one was going to come to his rescue. 

But, in a rare stroke of luck, someone did. 

He would've been done for if it hadn't been for a young stable hand with a working conscience who had shot over the perpetrators' heads with his father's pistol to chase them off. Somehow, even though he'd probably only weighed about ninety pounds, the kid had dragged Vash's dead weight away from the water, forcing him to breathe again and rubbing his back as he coughed and heaved and emptied his stomach and lungs of filthy water and bile onto the dusty street.

It had all seemed to last for hours, but in reality, it had been less than two minutes.

How ironic, truly, that Vash was experiencing that feeling all over again without a drop of water in sight.

His ribs compressing around his lungs, he stared through the computer monitor that had been turned toward him, where two clumps of white flickered in a sea of darkness. Wriggling. Pulsating.

Judith, Ship Three's doctor, managed to appear both composed and rattled as she pressed a key on the machine. A peculiar sound filled the air. Actually...two separate sounds, independent of one another. Strange, sloshy throbbing.

"Those are heartbeats," Judith breathed.

Vash's entire world slipped off its axis, leaving him disoriented and nauseated, like her words had been a hard surface that he'd concussed himself on when he fell.

Luida's thin, strong hand tightened around his own. He looked up at her; while her wrinkled face was pale, her dusty brown eyes were unreadable, fixed on the readout monitor. She'd always been so good at keeping a cool head in the worst of situations.

...was this even a bad situation? Should he be more afraid? Should he be happy? Sad? He wasn't sure. More than anything, he felt numb and disconnected. 

He'd come in fully prepared to be told he was carrying another Plant embryo. Not...not...this.

He wasn't sure if this was better or worse. 

Probably sensing that Vash was too shaken to make a sound, Luida spoke up.

"Dependent Plants don't have heartbeats."

"...no, ma'am, they don't," Judith finally agreed after a heavy beat of silence.

Luida didn't even flinch. "How healthy are they?"

"I..." Judith glanced back at the screen, her green eyes apprehensive, hesitant. "...well, they look...normal. Adequate amniotic fluid and yolk sacs. Strong heartbeats. They seem to be as healthy as any early pregnancy that's ever been under my care before. He said it's been three...weeks...oh...good Lord, if that's true, they shouldn't even have heartbeats yet." Her voice grew faint with sudden realization.

Vash's own heart tripped hard enough to audibly stutter his breathing, hammering frantically against its cage. What?

Judith's hand rested on his arm, her expression wary. "Before I go any further, I just need to let you know: at this early stage, it would be easy to termina—"

"No!" The word burst from Vash's chest before he could even think about it. Judith and Luida both startled.

"Okay. Okay. I'll...need to run some blood tests, to screen them for various defects." Judith shifted the head of the plastic wand on Vash's flat, gel-smeared stomach, just above his pubic bone; it made a tacky sound. The ghostly little blobs on the screen disappeared and reappeared in their separate bubbles of black. "I'm not trying to scare you, Vash, but with your Independent physiology, I'm just unsure of the compatibility. Genetically, I mean. This is...unprecedented."

The frantic urge to cry squeezed around Vash's throat like a fist. Oh, God...God in heaven, what have I done?

He felt Luida's fingers card through his hair, smoothing it back from his forehead exactly the same way she used to when he was little and couldn't sleep. It reminded him of Rem, and oh, he missed Rem and her tender wisdom now more than ever. She would know exactly what to do.

Tears escaped the corners of his eyes and slid down his temples before he could stifle them, and Luida brushed them away with her thumb with a pursed, sympathetic smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.

"It's going to be okay, baby," Luida whispered.

His lower lip quivered, his expression crumbling. She hadn't called him that in at least a hundred and forty-five years. His throat clicked with the effort of holding the tears back, but they couldn't be stopped. A sob puffed from his lips, breathless and hiccupping, and Luida leaned down to rest the lightest kiss on his forehead. 

He gripped her hand as gently as he could, staring a hole in the ceiling and striving to breathe through stifling panic and nausea, the same nausea that had pushed him to get checked by a doctor in the first place.

What do I do, Rem?

He closed his eyes briefly, but the voice of Rem didn't magically appear in his head to give him guidance. Of course it didn't. So, he took a shaking breath.

"I don't want to tell them until I know they're safe," he croaked.

"Okay," Luida replied without missing a beat, without even asking who they were. She probably already knew, even though she'd only met them a couple of times. Luida was perceptive, and Vash had never been good at keeping his heart off of his sleeve. "Stay as long as you need. You know you're always welcome. This is your home."

Simple as that. Sometimes, he forgot what it felt like to have a home to return to, and he had to admit that it was nice to be reminded. Especially at a time like this. 

Rem wasn't here anymore, but Luida was. Brad was. All of the other residents of Ship Three were. He wasn't alone, and if nothing else, he could take solace in that fact until the...until they had made it out of the woods. 

Then, he would have Meryl and Wolfwood, too. At least, he hoped they would still want him. 

"I can go ahead and take some blood now, if you want, to get a head start in the lab," Judith offered, wiping the gel off of his stomach.

With unsteady prosthetic fingers, Vash touched the spot where the wand had been on his skin.

"...if you don't mind."

 

⁌

 

For the first three days, he was so petrified by the countless unknowns and what-ifs and hypothetical disaster scenarios that he didn't sleep at all.

There are babies inside me. Two babies. Twins. Twins. Twins, his heart pounded nonstop, wild and afraid and threatening to crawl up his throat and choke him. 

There were so many things that could go wrong, it was dizzying. The numerous potential complications constantly whirled around in his head. It felt like if he closed his eyes for a single second, the babies would cease to be, ripped from his outstretched hands by fate, and he would be left with numbers six and seven of the precious, innocent children he had failed.

It didn't help that he couldn't feel them. Not like he'd been able to feel the baby Plants he'd gestated in the past. There wasn't that same, unmistakable hum of presence, like a tiny thread of electricity connecting the embryo to his heart and soul. That was the whole reason these babies had been able to stow away in his guts for three and a half weeks with him having no clue besides the horrid nausea. (Which, apparently, also wasn't normal: he shouldn't even be having morning sickness yet.)

When Judith kindly informed him that no, human mothers couldn't feel the life forces of their unborn children, and that until they got big enough to move around in utero, there was little physical feedback outside of the slowly growing baby bump and checkups from their midwife, he couldn't believe his ears. How frightening. How were expectant mothers not paranoid every single second of every day, not knowing for certain if their unborn children were even still alive without the help of a doctor...?

However, there was one consolation. Even if he couldn't feel their presence, he discovered that if he shut himself inside a quiet room and listened, really listened...he could hear their heartbeats.

If he wasn't being checked on by Judith, then he was lying on his back in his own bed with his hands splayed on his stomach, the silence of his room letting him eavesdrop on the fluttering warbles of life in his womb. They were significantly faster than his own heart rate, and so miniscule that he could hardly wrap his brain around the fact that they existed at all, but there they were, and exist, they did. Two potential lives, singing their guileless songs from within a mangled, impure body that wasn't worthy to house them.

Vash hadn't had trouble gulping down the urge to cry since he was a small child, but all of a sudden, it was impossible. A lot of his alone time was spent fighting a losing battle against his tears, struggling with the feelings of unworthiness and inadequacy that seemed even more heavy and unbearable than normal, their massive weight crushing his shoulders.

He could never be a parent. It was laughable that he even wanted to try.

...did he want to try? 

In between bouts of sobbing into his pillow, all he could do was stare at his ceiling with his lungs frozen in panic, terrified for the helpless little accidents in his belly. His track record spoke for itself; none of the poor baby Plants he'd given birth to had ever survived inside him longer than a month and a handful of days. Who was to say that these children would be any different? Was his body just...incapable of sustaining a baby? Any baby, whether they were Plant or something more human?

It was foolhardy to get attached. Deep down, Vash knew that the smartest course of action, the one that would hurt the least amount of people, would be to end it early and spare the tiny blobs a stressful life of having a natural disaster as a mom. 

...and yet...how could he not want them? These weren't just his own children; they were Nicholas D. Wolfwood's, two microscopic pieces of the man who held Vash's very heart in his calloused hands.

Who was he kidding. He wanted them so badly, it nearly made him sick.

He just didn't know what Wolfwood and Meryl would want.

At the thought of his two companions, of the circumstances that had led him here, he felt a fresh wave of tears flood his eyes. He curled onto his side, pulling his pillow close to bury his face in it.

After driving away from that little abandoned house where three baby Plants had been laid to rest a hundred and twenty-nine years apart*, Wolfwood and Meryl and Roberto had never so much as breathed another word of what had transpired there. It was far easier for Vash to just try to pretend the entire humiliating ordeal had been a nightmare cobbled together from the darkest, cruelest corners of his psyche than to face the horror of it all, and he was sure the others probably didn't want to think too deeply about what they'd seen, either, so they just...didn't talk about it.

Then, July had happened, and everything went to hell.

During his two years in hiding afterward, as excruciating as it was to be separated from them, a tiny, bitter part of Vash had insisted it was for the best that the others probably thought he was dead. They were better off without the constant threat of a typhoon ripping everything in their lives to shreds. This way, they could be happy, could safely live the lives they so richly deserved without Vash around to fuck everything up.

He would never forget the day he had opened the door of Sheryl and Lina's house to see Wolfwood and Meryl standing there.

It was like time had stood still. Like they had barely been apart for a few hours. As Vash had looked into their beautiful faces for the first time in two long, lonely years, and they had sandwiched him between their bodies in a tight embrace, he'd felt a breath-stealing tug of longing in a strange, nebulous place, somewhere between his guts and his very soul. Somehow, he knew for a fact that the clock was already ticking, that just from this laughably small amount of tender contact with Wolfwood and Meryl, with the shelters of safety and love that he'd missed for so long, his body was already toying with the idea of forming another embryo.

He had nearly been sick then and there.

Just like that, his highest priority had shifted to returning to Ship Three, so he could beg Judith to research a way to keep that from happening at all costs.

Of course, Meryl and Wolfwood had wanted to go with him. Had nearly insisted. It had killed Vash inside to tell them no, especially after seeing them for the first time in so long, but, until there was a solution, the less time they spent together, the better.

So much for a happy reunion. He couldn't even have that.

It had rankled to let himself be studied like some sort of fascinating specimen. He'd been in those situations before against his will, and he didn't relish doing it again, but if it could prevent another Incident, then he would just have to man up and deal with the creeping anxiety of being on an examination table. He knew Judith wasn't going to treat him like a creature to be vivisected in the name of science.

After a minimally invasive laparoscopic procedure confirmed that yes, he did have some approximation of both a male and a female reproductive system swimming around in his lower abdomen, and that no, thank God, he wasn't propagating yet, Judith had taken about twenty vials of blood from him and studied his chemical makeup for weeks on end, analyzing what made him tick with the help of several other scientists on board. He felt bad for troubling them, but they seemed excited to finally be able to help him in some way after all the times he'd healed the Plants for them. 

After some trial and error, they managed to isolate the reproductive hormones that caused his asexual propagation, reverse-engineer them, and synthesize a hormonal blocker that could be taken through intravenous injection. It basically blocked a single circuit in his brain from completing, which kept his body from...well. From feeling safe enough to reproduce. The meds made him jittery and a bit neurotic for about a week after the first dose, but he had pressed through it, determined to give it his best shot.

He couldn't go through another stillbirth. The very thought made him want to curl up and die. Feeling a little funny was bearable in comparison. 

With three more syringes full of the makeshift birth control tucked away in his bag, he had waved goodbye with the brand new arm Brad had built for him to replace the one that had been destroyed at July, his obsidian fingers glinting in the sunlight, and headed back to his home away from Home to test if the blocker had worked.

It scared him to even touch anyone for a couple of days, but, slowly, warily, he let himself creep closer and closer to them, and the fear that had paralyzed him began to drift further away. 

Because nothing happened. Not even when he snuggled on the couch with Meryl and her new charge, Milly, feeling safer and more comfortable than he had in months. Not even when he and Wolfwood started sleeping in the same bed. 

Not even when they...well. 

Tangled in bed after that first, satisfying time, with his face tucked into a neck that smelled of clean sweat and smoke and Hoppe's No. 9 gun cleaner, Vash had foolishly allowed himself to hope. Maybe this was it. Maybe the happiness he had always longed for had finally arrived.

That hope had lasted for months, growing tentatively stronger and stronger every time he and Meryl traded a quick kiss, or Milly dragged him into a bear hug, or Nicholas held his thighs back and filled him to the brim. He almost didn't know how to love someone and let himself be loved in return, having spent his entire life dodging it like the plague, but now that he could, both platonically and romantically, it was both daunting and intoxicating.

Finding himself with a newfound zest for life and nowhere to reroute that extra energy, he started volunteering at the orphanage with Wolfwood. Miss Melanie, a gruff woman with a sharp tongue and a heart of gold, was more than happy to give them three square meals and a place to rest their heads in exchange for the work they did, everything from repairing roof shingles to helping in the kitchens to keeping a few of the kids occupied in the courtyard so the other workers could hang the laundry without them underfoot. Meryl and Milly would sometimes help out whenever they came to visit, and Vash had never seen someone as patient and compassionate with children as Milly Thompson was, except for maybe Wolfwood. That alone made her trustworthy in Vash's eyes. 

...he'd gotten comfortable. Too comfortable. And if he'd learned anything about himself throughout his long life, it was that comfort made him careless.

His first clue should've been the peculiar sensation he'd felt as he'd been holding one of the youngest kids on his shoulder, rubbing his tiny back and trying to get him to stop fighting sleep. The boy was just a month old, having been dropped off at the doorstep as a barely-dry newborn, and Vash had never met a cuter baby in his life, with big brown doe eyes and sandy tufts of hair on his sweet-smelling little head. It was rare for Vash to get to hold such a young human, and he savored every second of it while he rocked the baby to sleep, smiling at his curly lashes and the rosy pout of his lips. 

He was so preoccupied that the telltale twinge in the left side of his lower abdomen went completely unnoticed.

The second clue, and the far more obvious one, should've been how embarrassingly eager he'd been to jump Wolfwood's bones the next morning in the shower, having woken up feeling uncomfortably hot and almost cross with arousal. Looking back on it, he wanted to crawl under a rock and hide over how forward he'd been. Wolfwood certainly hadn't minded, quite the contrary, but if Vash had just rubbed two brain cells together (instead of rubbing a few other things together) long enough to realize he was ovulating, well...maybe they wouldn't be in this entire mess at all.

One quick round against the shower wall was all it had taken to prove that, while the hormonal blocker definitely kept him from propagating, it had definitely not been designed with human sperm in mind, and especially not during one of Vash's rare reproductive cycles. But then, Vash knew that. Or, at least, he should've.

Stupid, stupid. He almost couldn't believe how stupid he'd been, in hindsight. He could practically hear Roberto's raspy, deadpan voice in his head, asking him how it was even possible for him to be so dense and short-sighted when he'd been alive for so damn long.

"Really stepped in it this time, didn'tcha, Stampede?"

Oh, God. Even now, nearly three years later, Vash still couldn't think about Roberto without it cutting off his oxygen and driving a hot poker through his chest. He missed that old man so, so much. Missed his curmudgeonly ways and his growling complaints about Meryl's driving and his surprisingly sage nuggets of wisdom. Vash often thought about that split second of genuine, seething outrage he'd seen in Roberto's eyes at the mere thought of someone taking advantage of him, like an old bulldog ready to tear someone's arm clean off the socket if it meant protecting one of his own, and it was a punch to the lungs every single time he remembered it.

Besides Brad, he'd never met another person that felt as close to a father figure as Roberto had. 

And thanks to Vash, he was dead, and he didn't even have a proper grave.

He would never forget the way the light in Meryl's eyes had snuffed out when he had asked her where Roberto was. She had pulled away and grasped her upper arm, whispering, "Wolfwood didn't tell you...?" in a tiny, brokenhearted voice that had gutted Vash in a way he would never recover from.

Which was good. He didn't deserve the mercy of healing. Those memories should torment him forever. He had stolen incalculable amounts of good from this world at July, and he could never begin to atone for it.

And that was why the two undeserved blessings nestled in his insides, sheltered by the unhallowed body that had slaughtered hundreds of thousands of innocent people, bewildered and frightened him so deeply. He didn't deserve them in the slightest. They were too precious, too good, to be bestowed upon someone like Vash the Stampede.

Regardless, they were here, and even if he could never truly measure up, he wanted to try.

Every night, he found himself on his knees beside his bed.

Please, he would beg with tears on his face and his hand over his eyes, unsure if he was even being heard. Please, let them live in spite of my sins. Please.

I'll never ask You for anything again, I swear.

Just please, grant me this one thing.

Three times a day, Judith gave him an ultrasound, measuring heart rates and estimated placental volumes and cranial sizes and amniotic fluid indices. Every time, she would proclaim that, despite his sickness and concerning weight loss, the babies, and the womb they resided in, were astoundingly healthy. Every time, Vash had to refrain from turning around and rushing back to the infirmary twenty minutes later to ask her to check again.

Instead, he made himself retreat to his room and listen to the tiny songs of life from within.

And somehow, miraculously, the four week mark came and went without a single issue, one restless day at a time. Two days passed. Then three. Then four. Vash wasn't sure he took a full breath at any point during that time, irrationally afraid that it would matter, somehow. That if he even so much as breathed too deeply, he would hurt them.

"You're sure they're still fine? You're absolutely sure?" He demanded again and again every day, clutching his rolled-up shirt in his hands like a lifeline.

"I'm absolutely, one million percent positive," Judith would assure him, probably for the actual millionth time, patient as the day was long. 

And still, he couldn't relax. Not with the other shoe of fucked-up fate hovering over him, ready to crush all three of them like insects. He stared at the ultrasound monitor, chest rising and falling with deliberately even breaths, pressing his hand over his navel. The babies twitched and quivered on the screen, tiny and fragile and wonderfully alive.

Please.

When the five week mark loomed and Judith still confidently gave the little beans the flawless bill of health she'd been giving them for the entire gestation, Vash had to start thinking about how he was going to break the news to Wolfwood and Meryl.

He'd lied straight through his teeth when he'd left Hopeland, telling Wolfwood he just needed to go check on everyone back Home, no, no, you don't have to come, seriously, it would put Miss Melanie out to have you gone right now, I'll be back soon. His insistence had probably raised Wolfwood's suspicions, but he didn't protest too much; he'd only pulled Vash in for a chaste kiss before he'd left. Vash could still feel it tingling on his lips if he thought about it, so gentle and warm, such a juxtaposition to who Wolfwood projected himself to be on the outside.

Ergo, knowing that he'd suspected something, Vash wasn't too shocked to see Wolfwood show up after two weeks with both of the girls in tow. All three of them stood inside the open airlock, hands on their hips and wearing expressions that ranged from relieved to indignant to quietly furious at the sight of him alive and well.

Anxiety scrunching his stomach like an accordion, Vash lifted a hand in sheepish greeting. "Hi. Uh—"

"Mr. Vash!" Milly crossed the threshold and threw her arms around him, hugging him so tightly that he swore he heard something in his shoulders give an ominous squeak. His feet actually left the ground for a second, and for that second and a few more, his heart turned a startled back flip. Thankfully, she set him down with great care. "It's so wonderful to know you're okay! We were awfully worried when we stopped by the orphanage and you weren't there, you're always there!"

Vash hugged Milly back with a nervous laugh, lifting his prosthetic arm when Meryl hugged his waist and settling it around her narrow shoulders. She squinted up at him, perturbed, but still pressed her round, pink cheek to his chest with a sigh. The warmth and solid weight of their hugs and the smell of clean sweat and sunshine soothed something inside of Vash's heart that he hadn't even been aware was ruffled.

Even after all these years, it still took him aback to receive such casual, uninhibited affection from humans.

He cleared his throat. "Yeah, I...had something to take care of here. Sorry for worrying you."

Wolfwood, still standing outside the doorway, glared right into his eyes. Vash tried not to flinch away.

He took them to the geodome, since Milly had never visited Home before. Wolfwood grumbled and growled the whole way there, crunching an unlit cigarette between his teeth like a thomas bit.

"'I'll be back soon,' he says. 'You ain't gotta worry,' he says. Tch. Can't believe I fell for that schlock. I really am a naive idiot for thinkin' you would be there and back within a week. Shoulda known some fuckery was afoot." Wolfwood slouched along beneath the Punisher's weight as he muttered to himself, while Meryl followed, rolling her eyes and exchanging stifled smirks with Vash and Milly. Vash didn't have much of a heart to return them, but he tried to behave as normally as possible, lest Wolfwood stop them right here in the hallway and shake him by his feet upside down for answers. Milly seemed delighted just to be there, having never seen a SEEDS ship up close before, much less been inside one that still functioned. Her big blue eyes darted here and there, excited and intrigued and sparkling with youth.

"Well, I'm just happy that Mr. Vash is alright. Surely he had something important to do if he was gone for so long," Milly declared. "You should trust him more, Mr. Wolfwood."

Vash placed a hand over his heart with wet, exaggerated sniffling. "Thank you for your vote of confidence, Ms. Thompson. You get me."

Milly mirrored the gesture with a sad nod. Wolfwood just scoffed and rolled his eyes.

As they entered the geodome, Vash inhaled the clean scents of soil and greenery with appreciation. It was crazy how linked to the olfactory senses memory could be; sometimes, he could close his eyes and sniff the air of the geodome, and it was like he was only a few months old again, curled up on Rem's lap with Nai's arm around him as she read them a book in the shade of the big tree.

"That cigarette better not be lit, Nicholas," Luida called over her shoulder from her seat on the ground beside one of the flower beds, snipping her pruning shears in their direction in playful, menacing fashion.

"Wouldn't dare, ma'am," Wolfwood replied loftily. "I like my ears right where they are."

Vash choked on his own saliva and coughed, realizing that Luida had probably also meant that Wolfwood shouldn't be smoking around him.

"Uh, Luida, mind showing Milly around the dome? I bet she's never seen some of these plants before," he wheedled.

Milly gasped. "Oh, yes, please!" 

Luida stood to her feet and brushed herself off, smiling and gesturing for Milly to follow her. "I'll give her the grand tour." Milly followed Luida without protest, though Vash did see her give them a curious look before she left.

Vash offered Meryl and Wolfwood both hands, practically dragging them across the dome out of earshot, beneath the laden branches of an apple tree.

"What's going on?" Meryl immediately asked as they sat down in the grass beside the pump-powered artificial stream. She was already searching Vash's face with laser focus, her brow wrinkled and her eyes shrewd. "You never would've stayed gone so long without telling anyone why if something wasn't wrong."

Vash crossed his ankles and rested his elbows on his knees, grasping his flesh hand in his prosthetic, rolling the pad of his thumb over the pisiform bone in his wrist. "Sorry. I just...Milly doesn't know what I am yet, so I wanted to tell both of you this before we dropped that bomb on her poor head."

Meryl shook her head with a fond smile. "She won't care. She'll still adore you."

Vash's heart squeezed. Milly was everything good in this awful world, everything he loved about humans, optimistic and kindhearted with more love to give away than she knew what to do with. Unlike most people, he knew for a fact that Milly would never hate him or fear him. He would trust her with his life.

Still, though. His whole "I'm a Plant but I walk around outside of a bulb" thing alone was a lot to handle, much less the fact that he was harboring two tiny passengers that Wolfwood was the father of. Milly would likely take it in stride, as she did just about everything else, but Vash still wanted to tell her while she was sitting.

"Out with it. What was so important that you had to stay gone for two weeks?" Wolfwood rolled the cigarette between his teeth. Vash was surprised it hadn't disintegrated by now. "They have trouble with the Plants or something?"

Oh, if only.

For a crazy, desperate second, Vash wished that he could put this off. He was about to throw a wrench in Wolfwood's entire life, upend it for good, and it had nausea turning his stomach that wasn't just morning sickness.

He took a thin, shuddery breath, realizing that he'd been staring blankly through Wolfwood's face. "No. The Plants are fine."

Wolfwood's eyes narrowed. "Well, what the fuck's the matter, then?"

Meryl's hand rested over Vash's flesh one. "You look sick," she said softly. "I can tell you don't feel well."

Vash closed his eyes and swallowed the excess saliva pooling under his tongue, squeezing his wrist harder. Shadowy memories of gripping his prosthetic ulna pricked his mind, and he slammed that mental door shut as hard as he could.

"I came here because I...I wanted the ship's doctor to examine me. I've been nauseous, throwing up a lot. Losing weight from it." He reached up to push his hair off his forehead, leaning into the palm of his hand. "It's a bit harder for me to catch most viral or bacterial illnesses that humans can because of my higher body temperature, so I was...concerned."

Meryl's face was falling. She slipped one hand under his prosthetic, holding it gently between her hands. "It...is it...serious?"

Vash wet his lips. "Nothing terminal, if that's what you mean."

Wolfwood heaved a harsh sigh. "You sure do love beatin' around the bush, blondie."

"Sorry. I'm stalling," Vash admitted. "It's not an easy thing to say."

Meryl's eyes had been drifting up and down his body, probably trying to work out what could be wrong, and her gaze suddenly stopped at his stomach. The moment that her steel trap of a mind snapped onto the right train of thought was nearly audible, and her eyes jerked back up to Vash's face.

"The blocker didn't stop working, did it?"

Instantly, Wolfwood's back went ramrod straight, his eyes hardening and his lips parted in muted dread. Vash could practically see the memories flashing through both Meryl's and Wolfwood's minds, memories of amniotic fluid and sticky crimson towels and screams that threatened to burst their eardrums.

From the pocket of his sweatpants, Vash pulled out the small, printed picture Judith had given him after his last ultrasound, silently handing it to Meryl, who huddled up to Wolfwood's side so he could see, too.

"Not exactly," Vash said weakly.

Meryl had already recognized what she was holding; her eyes were slate blue saucers in a sheet of splotchy white. Her hair fanned out around her head as she whipped over to look at Wolfwood, who was still a few mental steps behind her and squinting at the ultrasound like an old man without his reading glasses, then back to Vash.

"You're...?"

He winced, nodding.

"Oh, Vash!" She shoved the ultrasound photo into Wolfwood's hands, causing him to fumble to catch it, and lurched over to Vash, throwing her arms around his neck.

Pressing his hand to the small of Meryl's back, Vash saw the moment that reality hit Wolfwood in real time; his face drained of color, his eyes so wide and bright that Vash actually noticed the color of his midnight-blue irises for once.

His children might have those eyes.

The photo quivered between Wolfwood's fingers. "These aren't Plants, are they," he whispered.

Vash pursed his lips against rising tears, shaking his head.

Wolfwood looked like he'd been decked across the face. Meryl leaned back, cupping Vash's cheeks in her hands and looking him over, suddenly apprehensive.

"Are they okay? Are you okay?"

Vash sighed, letting his head rest in her hands. It felt nice; his neck muscles were sore from hanging his head over a toilet so much in the last few weeks.

"I'm fine. Just sick as a dog. And so far, they seem to be okay, too. More than okay; they're thriving. I'm too..." he struggled for words. "...I think I'm still too terrified to let myself be excited, but..." he held Meryl's petite wrists in both his hands and briefly kissed her forehead, then looked over at Wolfwood, his eyes wet. "I love them so much already."

For a moment, Wolfwood was stock-still. Then, he slowly stood up. "How safe is this for you."

His tone made Vash's stomach drop. "Nick—"

Wolfwood's expression was closed off. "Vash, half of your goddamn head is black."

Vash let go of Meryl and stood up, holding his hands out; she uneasily followed. "This won't be like the others—"

"How do you know?" Wolfwood yelled, sudden and gravelly.

Vash had to clamp his teeth together to keep from yelling back. He made himself pause and take a deep breath, really looking at his two companions. Wolfwood's eyes were flashing with astonished anger, but something else, something more the color of grief, was lurking deeper in his gaze. Meryl's eyes were clouding over, too, but less angry and more alarmed.

"Vash?" Meryl asked in a soft, small voice.

A realization swept over Vash that snuffed out the ember of indignation in his heart, and he was suddenly ashamed of himself for nearly losing his temper. Wolfwood and Meryl were both currently going through the same, violent roller-coaster of emotions Vash had two weeks ago, being tossed in every direction at once, stirring up the pain of old bruises and wounds that had never healed properly. 

They deserved honesty. That was the least Vash could give them.

Vash placed his hands on Meryl's shoulders and softened his voice.

"I don't know. Not a hundred percent." He flattened his flesh palm on his stomach, still flat as a board, but full of life. "But, they've survived this long. Longer than any of the others. I can't just give up on them when they're healthy." He looked at Wolfwood. Pleading. "They're trying. I want to, as well."

Wolfwood ran a frustrated hand through his hair. "And if this ends up like the others? What then?"

Vash's jaw flexed, and he swallowed the memory of his own bloodied vocal cords.

"...then, it still will have been worth it to me to try," he whispered.

For a moment, Wolfwood just stood there, chest slowly rising and falling, looking at Vash with a myriad of emotions on his face. His head shook slightly, taken aback, as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing. Then, he handed Meryl the photo and turned on his heel.

"I need a cigarette."

Meryl took a couple of steps after him. "Wolfwood, wait..."

He acted like he hadn't heard her.

Vash watched him go with a sinking heart. He'd known from the get-go that it was unrealistic to expect a happy reaction after what all three of them had been through together. Still, the small, childish part of him that still tried to be optimistic felt disappointed.

Meryl's arms slipped around his waist. "He's just worried about you," she mumbled, pressing her cheek to Vash's sternum. "And I am, too. I...I don't ever want to see you suffer like that again, sweetheart."

Vash's throat clenched. Meryl almost never called him pet names except to comfort him when he was in pain, which made him wonder how much of the conflict he felt on the inside was visible in his eyes. Probably all of it, considering how abysmal Wolfwood always said his poker face was. He wrapped his arms around Meryl's shoulders, kissing the top of her head, breathing in the fragrance of her minty shampoo.

"I know. I'm so sorry for springing this on both of you, after...all of that." He swallowed. "But, I'm going to choose to have faith that it won't be like last time." He scoffed under his breath. "Wolfwood should practice what he preaches."

Meryl's lips briefly pursed in a sad smile. "You should've seen him all the way here. You know how he gets when he's really worried."

"Cranky as hell?" Vash muttered.

"Well, yes, but...he also smoked a lot more than usual, and he was really quiet and intense. When he thought I wasn't looking, I could see it all over his face." Meryl's hand rested over his heart. "He loves you, just like I do, even though he might not say it."

Vash's heart melted, mixing with the ache. He leaned down to rest a light kiss on Meryl's petal-soft lips; she stood on tiptoe to receive it, cupping the back of his head in her palm, burying her fingers in the short, black hair. When they separated, she placed her hands on his hips, thumbs tracing back and forth.

"He might come around if you give him some space. Just be patient with him." She smiled up at him, though it was still a bit pinched with worry. "In the meantime, I'm here for you. Not as much as I wish I could be, because of work, but..."

Vash tucked a chunk of hair behind Meryl's ear, skimming his finger over her silver earring. "Your job is important, doll."

"Yep. I have to keep reminding people that Vash the Stampede isn't the monster they claim."

He tweaked her pert nose, earning a giggle. "Not at all what I meant." He placed his hand beneath his navel. "I wonder what they would say if they knew."

"Absolutely nothing of any merit," Meryl said, lifting her nose in disdain. "If there's anyone in this world that would be a wonderful mothe—uh, parent, it's you."

She covered the slip-up with a chuckle, but still, Vash turned the word "mother" over in his brain, cocking his head in contemplation. He rubbed the spot where his children grew, and suddenly, he realized that it wasn't quite flat anymore; a shallow bump was beginning to form.

"If you say so."

 

⁌

 

A while later, Vash found Wolfwood sitting outside on the ledge next to the airlock, nursing what was probably his tenth cigarette, judging by the full ash tray next to him that Vash recognized from the van, and staring out across the open desert through his shades. As Vash slid his own glasses on and carefully sank down next to Wolfwood, letting his legs dangle off the edge, Wolfwood glanced over at him, then away, then cleared his throat. Blowing a stream of smoke away from Vash, he tossed the cigarette down into the sand and twisted the ball of his foot on it, then leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

They sat in silence, watching the wind carve wavy patterns into the sand dunes. The suns hung high in the sky, beating down on the thirsty world below. Thankfully, under the shade of the ship with the wind gently ruffling their hair, the midday heat wasn't unbearable. Still, Vash made a mental note not to stay out for too long. He was pretty hardy himself, but he didn't know how well unborn babies tolerated their mother getting overheated, half Plant or no. Probably not very well; it seemed like pregnancy made a person pretty fragile. Not that that was a bad thing. He just needed to be careful now.

"I didn't..."

Vash stopped swinging his legs, waiting.

Wolfwood mumbled, awkward and halting. "...I didn't mean I don't...want them." He rubbed the back of his neck, giving Vash's stomach a lightning-fast glance, then fell into silence again.

Deciding to venture cautiously, Vash whispered, "It's okay if you don't."

Wolfwood sat up in alarm. "No, I...God, no, blondie. It ain't like that." He looked away again, skittish. "I just don't want..."

Vash watched him for a moment with a small, pursed smile. "It's a lot. I know." He looked away, out into the deep blue sky.

When Wolfwood didn't speak again, Vash sighed.

"I want to say I'm sorry. It was reckless and stupid of me to allow this to happen. I should've...I was careless. I regret the circumstances, but you should know that I don't regret the outcome. Nor will I ever."

Wolfwood wouldn't look at him. "You and I both know what the best thing to do would be."

A burning ball of spikes stung Vash in the chest.

"You give up so easily," he whispered.

"Oh, for—I'm not giving up," Wolfwood snapped. Oh, now he was looking at him, and he was scowling up a storm. That had been the wrong thing to say. "I'm trying to make you think about what you're about to do. In case you've forgotten, you ain't exactly won any medals for that."

Vash had to count to ten in his head, reminding himself that a lot of what he was feeling was probably heightened by hormones. He needed to keep his cool. Wolfwood was worried, and worry didn't always look like worry on him; it often looked like anger.

"I want these children, Nicholas," he said evenly. "I'm not compromising that. Even if they never draw a single breath, I'll sleep better at night knowing that I gave them the best chance I could possibly give them."

Wolfwood's eyes were barely discernable behind the shades, but Vash could tell he was being studied. "I would never ask you to get rid of 'em if you really do want 'em," he finally said. "You know me better than that."

"I know." Vash sighed, rubbing his face. "I understand your concern. It's...warranted." He resisted the urge to run his fingers through the pitch-black undercut that had resulted from July, or the lock of black from New Moab up underneath the blond. "But, Luida has a hypothesis that I think might hold some merit. I told Meryl about it a few minutes ago." He looked over at Wolfwood, wordlessly seeking permission to explain.

Wolfwood just watched him silently, brow still furrowed. Vash took that as an okay.

"Luida thinks that a pregnancy with half-human Independents won't be as strenuous on my body as one with dependent Plant fetuses. It isn't solely up to my body to funnel the genetic materials through my gate this time. I just, uh..."

He'd almost said he wished Nai were still around so he could explain how it all worked, because Vash still knew so frightfully little. Nai would know, but Nai was gone.

Clearing his suddenly-smaller throat, he continued. "As far as she can tell, this pregnancy isn't activating my gate at all. It's functioning much like a human gestation would, with my DNA and yours working together to form the babies, and the placentas sustaining them through me." He chewed his lip. "I'm a little closer to human than I'd thought on the inside, I guess."

Again, he nearly mentioned Nai. He could just hear him saying, you're more like them than you've ever been like me. Mentally, he batted the derisive young voice of his brother away. Bringing Nai up around Wolfwood never ended well.

Wolfwood looked wary, but pensive. "So...no Plant power involved."

Vash shrugged. "Not as of yet. That could always change, but Luida doesn't think it's likely. I thought it might be worth saying if it gave you a little peace of mind."

Another cigarette appeared, but Wolfwood didn't light it; only chewed on the filter. "And how does Luida know all this very specific info?"

"I mean...she is a Plant engineer. She's not just pulling it out of her ass. But, she had some help from Judith, the ship's doctor, for the anatomy stuff." Vash took a deep breath, and it was a mistake, because a lungful of the heated desert air only made his stomach turn. "I know you and Meryl are worried. I am, too. I'm terrified." He swallowed hard, trying to will the nausea away without much success. "But, we're in good hands. Judith has been my doctor ever since the Great Fall. She's studied my body inside and out, and she thinks they have a fair chance."

Wolfwood stared out at the desert. "Forgive me for sounding callous, but I care more about your chances."

Vash silenced the pang of hurt in his heart, smothering it between his palms before it could take root. He took another soundless breath and let it out.

"That's understandable." He twiddled his thumbs. "I guess that leaves us at an impasse."

A tired sigh lowered Wolfwood's broad shoulders. "No, needle noggin. It doesn't. If you want this, I'm..." He buried his fingers in his hair, resting his forehead on the heel of his hand. "I can't just up and leave you after knocking you up with twins. I may not be expectant dad of the year so far, but even I wouldn't stoop that low. I just...I know you, and I know your routine by now. If those kids start sapping your power reserves dry and giving you a brand new dye job, I don't want you pulling some self-sacrificial bullshit and throwing your life away. You matter more than they do."

Vash instantly opened his mouth with a frown.

"Vash."

He snapped it closed.

Wolfwood took off his shades, letting them dangle in his fingers, and Vash was shocked to see his eyes red and moist and startlingly vulnerable in a way Wolfwood despised being. As he glared out at the desert, Vash realized that he looked far more anxious and emotional than angry. His hand scrubbed over his face with a harsh sigh and a muttered "fuck, I suck at this".

Vash's heart cramped. "Nick..."

"Just keep what I said in mind." His gaze was still pointed away, as if eye contact would cause him to break. The wind tousled his inky hair across his forehead. Shaking his head minutely, he closed his eyes, brow furrowed, and let out an unsteady exhale. "I can't let you go again after less than a year of having you back. Please, don't ask that of us."

It was the closest thing to a verbal "I love you" Wolfwood had ever given him, and it felt like a brick to the chest.

After a moment of speechless silence, Vash slowly nodded.

"Okay," he said softly. He looked down at his folded hands, then scooted back and stood up, one hand on the wall of the airlock. "I'll leave you alone and let you finish your cigarette."

Wolfwood caught Vash's hand, pulling it to his lips to kiss his knuckles. With a sad smile, Vash leaned over and tilted Wolfwood's face up to press a kiss over his mouth, dropping another on the bridge of his nose as he pulled away. Wolfwood wasted no time ducking his head and slipping his shades back on, but not before Vash caught a glimpse of uncertainty still lingering in his eyes and the set of his brows.

As Vash returned inside, he heard the metallic snik of Wolfwood's lighter.

 

⁌

 

After staying overnight, with painful reluctance, Meryl traveled back to December City with Milly in tow, promising to try and get some time off from work again soon and threatening Vash within an inch of his life with a finger Derringer if he didn't radio at least once every few days.

"I will, I will, sheesh," Vash complained, hands in the air like he was being held up for his purse. "You act like I'm bad at keeping in touch or something." Fingernails dug into his ear lobe, and he yelped, overreacting with gusto. "Owowow, Mer, that's my ear!"

Meryl pulled gently, shaking her other fist in threat. "More where that came from if you forget to call, mister."

Vash wheezed. "I'm so abused. Milly, are you seeing this torture? Do you see how they treat me?! Someone call the spousal abuse hotline!"

Meryl snorted. "We're not even married, you goofball—"

"I see!" Sparkles hung in the air around Vash's head, eyes closed and brow furrowed dramatically. "Then I accept your proposal, Miss Stryfe! I'll be taking your last name, of course, hope you don't mind, but 'Vash Stryfe' just sounds far too badass to pass up on—"

"Wh—buh—" Meryl turned beet red from the neck up. "Vash!"

Milly just shook with laughter, shooing a stammering, steaming Meryl back to the van and waving.

As the girls disappeared into the distance, Wolfwood cocked his head, hands on his hips.

"Huh. Vash Stryfe does sound kinda badass."

Vash gestured emphatically to him with an open palm. "That's what I'm saying!!"

A few minutes later, as he was walking back to his room from the bathroom, he realized that Wolfwood was radioing Miss Melanie to tell her he would be gone until further notice. She seemed surprised, but didn't question him too much beyond asking if he and Vash were okay. Ever since Wolfwood had disclosed who they both really were, she had never pried or pressed him for many details. Vash had to wonder how much of that was tactful kindness and how much of it stemmed from the crippling guilt she felt over what Wolfwood had been put through, but regardless, he liked Melanie, so he was going to assume the best of her.

When Wolfwood hung up, he glanced up at Vash in the doorway, then quickly looked away, flushing.

"What're you lookin' at, needle noggin?"

Vash didn't say a word, but...maybe it did plant a tiny seed of hope in his chest.

The couple of months that followed were, admittedly, tiresome and unenjoyable.

Vash could probably count on two hands the times throughout his whole life that he'd actually been sick enough to vomit. For it to be a daily occurrence, sometimes multiple times per day, was just unheard of. He knew that morning sickness was normal, but he hadn't expected to become so...impaired by it. It controlled every part of his day, to the point that he couldn't venture too far away from a bathroom unless he carried around something to throw up in. Which was just embarrassing, frankly. 

The first trimester was rough, the mothers of Ship Three would tell him with commiserating pats on the back. Though, he wasn't entirely sure his pregnancy even had stereotypical "trimesters." Judith said the babies were developing a good bit faster than they should've been, and was in the process of calculating an estimated percentage as she built their growth chart, so he doubted he would be pregnant for the whole nine months that a human mother would. After all, Vash himself had matured to the size of a twelve-year-old human in a single year. It only stood to reason that any children he had would develop quickly, though perhaps not as quickly as he and...and Nai had.

Maybe his body was just cramming all the morning sickness it could into the shorter time frame, then. It was condensed, like canned soup. That made sense. Right?

It didn't help that he was constantly starving even through the nausea, craving protein and vitamin-rich foods with a voracity that unnerved him deeply. He'd never been so unable to ignore his hunger before, had never needed to eat so often before. Judith kept coaxing him to try to eat, even if they both knew it was going to come right back up within minutes, because he was still steadily losing weight.

"Hollow cheekbones really interfere with my boyish charm," he joked weakly with his head in the toilet, earning a shoulder chop from Wolfwood that made him whine out a fake sob.

To Vash's surprise, Wolfwood stayed by his side through every toilet-camping session, draping cold rags over the back of his neck and patting his back (albeit a bit awkwardly) and otherwise just keeping him company while he rode it out for however long it lasted. Sometimes it was minutes, sometimes it was an hour.

It would've been more tolerable if it hadn't kept getting worse and worse.

On what had to qualify as the worst day thus far, Vash didn't leave the bathroom all day long. He spent the majority of his time curled up with his head in Wolfwood's lap on the cold, tile floor, emesis basin clutched in one clammy, shaking hand in case he couldn't sit up fast enough when the next round hit. In between waves of the most revolting nausea he'd ever felt, Wolfwood would clean him up and press hydration into him with quiet insistence that struck a chord in Vash's chest that genuinely hurt.

"Sorry. I know it's gross," he panted as he slowly lowered himself down again, his voice cracking and brittle. He'd tried to drum up the energy to crack a joke, maybe about how unromantic this date was, but he was just too worn out to be anything but honest. As he settled his head on Wolfwood's thigh, Wolfwood flushed the toilet and nudged a fresh juice box against Vash's knuckles, and it took a full two seconds of his brain short-circuiting to remember how to grab things.

Never in a hundred and fifty-three years had he ever puked so hard that vomit leaked out of his nose until two minutes ago, and he was mortified that such a thing was even physically possible.

Wolfwood stroked Vash's sweat-damp hair as he took a sluggish sip. "It's fine. Growing up in an orphanage pretty much cured me of being squeamish. Someone was throwing up or coughing or running a fever at least once a week around there."

"Did you ever take care of Livio when he was sick?" Vash worried the straw of the juice box between his teeth, savoring the taste of artificial apple while he could. He was so hungry, his stomach felt like someone had kicked a hole straight through his torso.

Too late, he wondered if he'd just stuck his foot in his mouth, but Wolfwood didn't seem too upset by the question.

"Constantly. Little shit caught every single bug that went around. I think he must've been born with a poor immune system. Any time he caught so much as a sniffle, he was running to me, crying about how he didn't feel good." Vash gazed up at Wolfwood, seeing wistful nostalgia mixed in with the grief in his eyes; he was looking somewhere far away. "You would've gotten along just fine."

Vash mustered up a weak smile. "I would've loved him, too."

Wolfwood smoothed Vash's hair back from his tacky forehead, and the fond, unguarded look on his face was a bright spot in an otherwise very dim day.

Time really started blurring together after that, and Vash honestly couldn't have said how long it lasted. In reality, it was only about three or four days total of near-constant vomiting, but it felt like an eternity. Vash's brain felt frozen and stiff, wandering through the unrelenting sickness on autopilot and struggling to think logically. Surely it wouldn't last forever. Human mothers went through this all the time, so he could, too. He was just being a baby, he insisted over and over to Wolfwood, who looked like he was about five seconds away from tearing his own hair out.

(If he'd been more in his right mind and less delirious from dehydration, he would've felt guilty for how mad with worry he was driving poor Wolfwood.)

Judith, thank God, firmly put her foot down when Wolfwood dragged Vash to the infirmary and they discovered that he had dropped below a hundred and fifty pounds. Too tired and sick with both nausea and worry to even put up a fight, Vash resigned himself to infirmary jail until further notice.

"They call it 'hyperemesis gravidarum' in humans. It's dangerous stuff." Judith carefully taped the nasal tube that Vash had already forgotten the name of down on his cheek while Wolfwood hovered on the other side of the bed with his arms crossed, a silent guardian. "It can lead to severe dehydration, deep vein thrombosis, organ failure...to say nothing of spontaneous pregnancy loss from malnutrition."

"Are the babies going to be okay?" Vash rasped, suddenly finding his eyes wet, reaching up to grab at Judith's white scrub sleeve with fingers that wouldn't grip correctly.

Judith caught his hand and gently rubbed it between both of hers. "They're just fine. I've been monitoring them. They've been drawing nutrition from your body through their placentas, just like they're supposed to. They just can't do it for much longer when there's no nutrition left to draw, dear."

Yeah...maybe that did make sense. His brain felt like an undercooked omelet, yolky and runny.

Judith continued, gesturing to the small blender quietly whirring away on the counter top a few feet away from the bed. "This meal replacement formula and the intravenous vitamins and fluids will keep you and the babies nourished without you having to eat orally; everything will bypass your stomach and go straight into your small intestine to be absorbed, and that should cut down on your nausea. I would rather you still try to drink and eat every now and then regardless, just to see if you can keep anything down, but...we'll work up to that."

Of course, the one time in his life he wanted to eat everything in sight, he couldn't. He wondered if there was some sort of case study on the amount of possible ironies one could suffer in a single lifetime that he could sign up for.

Vash blinked stinging eyes, wiggling his irritated nose and sniffing. It felt wrong to have a tube down his throat, no matter how thin and pliable it was. Putting it in had felt like carpet burn in his already raw esophagus, and its constant presence made him breathe a bit faster out of low-level anxiety, but he was sure he could get used to it if he just ignored it.

"Was—" He coughed into his elbow, grimacing and writhing the back of his tongue against his soft palate. It was so uncomfortable to talk around. He leafed a tissue from beside the bed, blotting the clear snot that had leaked out around the tube when he coughed. "Was I doing something wrong this whole time, Judy...?"

"No, darling. Not at all." Judith patted his shoulder. "My best guess is, your body has just never experienced the human chorionic gonadotropin hormone before, so it's...overreacting a little bit. That's the stuff produced by the placenta that sustains the pregnancy. Right now, your hCG levels are through the roof because you're pregnant with fraternal twins and have two separate placentas. High hCG levels can cause debilitating nausea even in pregnant humans, much less pregnant Independents."

Vash hummed, only half listening to the medical jargon, poking at the IV needle covered in a transparent dressing in his forearm. Judith tapped his wrist with her fingertip, and he stopped.

"Fraternal," Wolfwood mused, stroking the facial hair at his jawline. He looked nice with an almost-beard. He should forget to shave more often. "They'll look different from each other, then."

Judith fiddled with the blender. Vash heard plastic crinkle. "Most likely."

Thank God.

"I'll be sure to ask them which one is the evil twin when they're born."

Vash and Judith both glared daggers at Wolfwood, who shrugged. "What? Too soon?"

Vash just slapped him on the arm. Okay, so maybe he'd been thinking something similar, but it didn't need to be said out loud.

"In any case, get ready to drag this IV pole around with you until further notice," Judith sighed, hooking a clear bag to the stand, now full of the pale yellow, opaque liquid she'd been blending, along with the bag of intravenous fluids. Then, she clicked the tubing into place and pressed a few buttons on the screen of the pump. "These first few minutes will be crucial. Vash?" She leaned into his field of vision, and he made himself focus. "Let me know immediately if you start feeling like you're going to vomit. I hate to say it, but you also won't be able to lie flat at all while this tube is in. I'm not having you aspirate on stomach acid in your sleep."

"Seems like a whole lotta trouble," Wolfwood mumbled, crossing his arms in disapproval.

With a weak smile, Vash cupped his hands over his barely-there bump. "It's worth it for them."

He could handle a little extra trouble. Trouble was practically his middle name, after all. In his mind, there was no such thing as "too much trouble" when it came to keeping these babies safe. They were miracles, fragile little flickering candles in a vast, unknown desert, and Vash would be damned if he didn't bend himself over backwards in any way he possibly could to shield them from the harsh winds with his hands.

Wolfwood studied him for a long moment from beneath those dark lashes, brow softening almost imperceptibly. Then, he turned to Judith, who was washing her hands at the sink.

"Hey. Walk me through how to make this thing work."

"Whatever for?" Judith said, winking over her shoulder at Vash.

Wolfwood's ears turned pink. "In case you keel over while it's still in, granny!" He snapped.

"Be nice to her, she's keeping me and the beans alive," Vash chastised, tugging the tail of Wolfwood's shirt. Wolfwood shooed his hand away.

"Yeah, well, tell her to quit bein' smug, then."

"She has every right. She's technically older than me because of cryo sleep."

"Wow, she's over a million years old? What a looker."

"Hey!"

And so, while Vash twirled his thumbs on his chest and alternated between dozing and trying to keep a lid on the anxiety that was still scratching at the corners of his brain because of the tube, Judith patiently showed Wolfwood the ins and outs of how to work the pump, how to mix and blend the powdered nutritional supplement, how to flush the lines with sterile water...everything he would need to know if he ever had to step in and take over for her for some reason. At least, that was the way she framed it, probably to try and save Wolfwood a little face since he still seemed grumpy about her teasing. (Which was silly. Judy only teased people she liked, so why was he grumpy?)

It would only be until Vash could keep food and water down again, but...still. It meant a lot that Wolfwood was showing interest. Vash knew that Wolfwood wasn't very adept with complicated technology that wasn't the Punisher, so it was touching that he was willing to learn for Vash's sake.

And...maybe for the babies' sakes, too.

The progress of the feed through the tube was slow, taking nearly an hour of watching and waiting for him to notice a difference at all, but finally, the gnawing, painful hunger that yawned in Vash's middle began to subside. Emotional tears pricked his eyes at the creeping relief, the sense of being relaxed for the first time in what felt like forever washing over him.

Wolfwood was by his side in an instant, hands hovering over him. "What? Does something hurt?"

Vash shook his head, face scrunching. He tried to speak, but an inelegant tumble of sobs came out, instead, almost surprising him with their strength.

"I haven't not been hungry in weeks," he finally managed to eek out, breaking down into earnest sobbing and smearing the tears away from his temples with the back of his hand.

"Oh, honey," Judith murmured, smoothing his hair back from his forehead.

Wolfwood just held his prosthetic hand like a precious treasure, anchoring him to shore while he cried.

 

⁌

 

Even with how uncomfortable and annoying only breathing through one nostril and talking and swallowing saliva around a tube had to be, Vash never uttered a single word of complaint, even when granny told them it had to be in for six whole weeks. Wolfwood knew in that moment that Vash was stronger than he would ever be; he would've been yanking that thing out of his guts within five minutes of having it in.

It's worth it for them, Vash's tender voice echoed, sinking deep in Wolfwood's chest like a stone in quicksand.

Vash moved most of his personal items to the infirmary, since the heads of the beds there could be easily reclined to keep him from getting gastric gunk in his lungs while he slept, and to make it easier for the old lady to give him ultrasounds or help them with the whatchamacallit tube if need be. After about a week of learning, though, Wolfwood could do most of it on his own. It really wasn't too complicated. Just had to pulverize the powder and water in the blender until it was smooth, run the pump twice a day, morning and night, and make sure the lines stayed clean and unobstructed. He let Judith take care of the IV in Vash's arm, since he knew zilch in that department and would really rather not even touch it.

When Vash finally began to lose that unhealthy, ashen pallor and started gaining some weight back, Wolfwood was torn between clicking his heels together in sheer excitement and falling on his face before Almighty God to sob in gratitude. Vash had never been much more than an upside-down triangle of lean muscle on a stick, but seeing him that skinny, with his cheekbones sharp and his wrists and neck far too thin and his eyes so grey and tired, had been nothing short of chilling. Wolfwood prayed that it never happened again.

Vash still did his best to drink a big glass of water once a day, to keep his stomach muscles from atrophy. He tried to put on a brave face, and he only threw up one time from it, but Wolfwood could tell it made him feel nauseated every single time; those yellowish-green smudges around his eyes never lied. Yet, he didn't refuse, didn't even whine or cry any crocodile tears for comedic effect. After forcing the water down, he would curl up on his side with his face smushed in his pillow to ride out the nausea, one hand clutching the pillow and the other pressed over the stomach that barely even looked pregnant yet.

Well. Until about two weeks later.

On week ten of the pregnancy in total, Wolfwood noticed something as Vash was shuffling back from the restroom, returning to the infirmary bed that had become his nest, looking soft and bleary-eyed and rolling his IV stand with the one arm he currently had. He was napping a lot more these days, fatigued in a way that reminded Wolfwood a little too much of the aftermath of healing a Plant, so he often left his prosthetic off to rest his shoulder. 

As Vash stretched his arm and stump over his head and squealed out a deliberately obnoxious noise, like he did every time he stretched, Wolfwood looked up from the mechanics journal that Brad had lent him and jolted in surprise, having just caught a glimpse of a properly pregnant bump under a lifted hemline.

"Hey, blondie." He put his book down, rising from the arm chair he had dragged up to the bed. "Lift your shirt."

"Mm?" Vash stopped midway into stretching his back and squinted at him, then tugged the hem of the loose, grey tee he was wearing up. His eyes bugged out, sleepiness fleeing. "Holy shit," he breathed.

Hesitating, Wolfwood reached out to meet him, cupping the underside of the substantial bump. He'd never touched it much before. Vash's scarred skin was warm, the muscle underneath strangely firm.

Wolfwood cleared his throat. "Finally starting to look like you're eating for three."

Vash tucked his shirt tail under his chin, running his fingertips up and down the curve of his belly with a dazed, giddy grin. "They're growing so fast. Judy said yesterday that they're already measuring as big as human babies would at fifteen weeks." He looked up at Wolfwood, his smile fading, his eyes suddenly careful. "She also said she would probably be able to tell their sexes. Is that...okay?"

Wow, did Wolfwood ever need to do better. He never wanted Vash to feel like he had to walk on eggshells around him. 

"Why wouldn't it be?" Wolfwood stuck his hands in his pockets. "I'm not partial to knowing; whatever you wanna do is fine with me."

With a contemplative hum, Vash pressed his fingertip over his navel. It looked like it was trying to become an outie. "I dunno. I don't care what they are, I'll love them either way, but...I think I might go crazy with anticipation if I don't know."

A smirk tugged at Wolfwood's mouth. "You can barely wait to give someone a gift on their birthday."

"Listen, it was only eight months early, shut up. Milly was thrilled."

"When is she not?"

"Anyway. I want to know, yeah." Vash's eyes were warm, shining pools of azure as he gazed down at his bump. "If it's really okay."

"Sure. We can think of names easier that way."

Wolfwood kept his expression casual and tried to ignore the uncomfortable thrill of genuine fear at his own words, because these kids were becoming less of a concept and more of a reality with every passing minute, and fucking hell, that was scary to someone who had barely planned on making it past thirty and didn't deserve to even hold a baby with Vash's genes.

That evening, with Vash's dinnertime nutrition whirring away through the pump, Judith gave him an ultrasound.

"Someone popped since last time," she chuckled as she slathered the gel across the underside of Vash's poked-out belly.

Vash grinned, declaring, "I feel like I ate about four boxes of donuts all by myself."

Judith's shoulders dropped in dismay. "Please, tell me you've never actually done that."

Vash slowly pulled the neck of his shirt up over his nose and mouth, his eyes sparkling with exaggerated, faux innocence. Wolfwood could practically see the choir of cherubs singing above his imaginary halo.

Judith sighed, shaking her head and muttering to herself about diabetes and reckless young men as she pulled slack into the cord of the ultrasound stick to start searching for the first baby.

Wolfwood just smiled to himself. He would never have it in him to scold Vash for eating. Not when the spiky-headed idiot seemed so fond of depriving himself of nutrition if he felt like he didn't deserve it.

"It's okay, I wouldn't even think about doing it now. They can't tolerate as much sugar as I can," Vash assured her with a pat to his stomach. "I'm just glad they're growing."

"As am I, though you may run into some discomfort soon." Judith briefly removed the wand, running her fingers over the sunken scars on Vash's right side that looked like some huge, clawed beast had raked half of his internal organs out with one fell swipe. Wolfwood didn't even want to entertain the thought of what the fresh wound had looked like. "Scar tissue is more brittle than normal tissue, so it doesn't stretch quite as easily, and you're about to start getting bigger a lot faster. I'll rummage up some ointment for you that will help, but be ready for a lot of soreness and itching."

Vash flapped his hand, rolling his eyes. "What else is new." Judith and Wolfwood exchanged a deadpan, long-suffering look with each other. Vash blinked. "What?"

"You can keep it after the pregnancy," Judith said, her tone leaving no room for argument. "I'm prescribing it to you until further notice. As in, forever."

A dramatic sigh, and Vash's head fell back onto the pillow. "Alright, alright."

Finally, someone Vash would listen to. Maybe Wolfwood was starting to like this old bat, after all.

His eyes wandered to the screen, and his stomach folded over with equal parts unease and awe, just like it did every time he saw the kidney beans in Vash's uterus and heard their creepy little heartbeats. Though, calling them beans wasn't very accurate anymore; they had spindly arms and legs now, beginning to look like actual babies instead of worm larvae. The little thing on the screen, the first of their twins, was constantly wriggling around, like it had already inherited Vash's boundless energy.

Wolfwood swallowed dryly. "Can you feel that?"

"No," Vash pouted. "They're still too small."

Huh. Wolfwood couldn't help but wonder when they would be big enough, but the thought left his mind when the old lady spoke up again.

"Alright. I have a good view." Judith's misty green eyes twinkled. "Fanfare or no? Would you like a drumroll? Party poppers? I can run and see if Luida has any confetti—"

"Judyyy," Vash pleaded.

Judith laughed. "Congratulations. Baby A is a girl."

Vash instantly grappled for Wolfwood's hand. "Nicholas," he breathed, naked emotion in his gaze.

Wolfwood gripped Vash's hand, their fingers interlocked, staring through the monitor. "A girl, huh."

That tracked. He'd expected it. All of the...fetuses Vash had given birth to in the past had been female, just like all dependent Plants.

Somehow, he found his mind running away from him, scenes playing out in his mind's eye, and it was like he could almost see her already. Filmy daydreams of teaching her how to shoot and ride a motorcycle were filling his head, one after the other. Or, hell, playing dolls and painting nails with her if she wanted to be more girly.

...he wasn't sure where those thoughts were even coming from.

"Our little princess," Vash crooned, equal parts dreamy and wet with tears as he stroked the side of his belly with his thumb. "Oh, I love her so much already..."

Do I love her, too? The thought smacked Nicholas upside the head like a flying cinder block, and he had to clear his throat for fear of the next breath coming out shaky. The fear that had been silently building in his gut for the last two and a half weeks didn't just go away with that realization, but suddenly, it felt like it didn't matter quite as much.

"Now for baby B..."

As Judith searched and Wolfwood handed Vash a tissue, he remembered something he'd been meaning to ask. "Hey, granny. Did you ever figure out how much faster than human babies they're growing?"

Judith paused, flipping to a page in her clipboard that held a line chart and some unintelligible chicken scratch. Why did doctors always have such shit handwriting?

"Well. Human fetuses gestate for around thirty-seven to forty weeks. As far as I've been able to calculate from their growth patterns so far, they seem to be developing about fifty percent faster than their human peers would."

Wolfwood's brows came together in shock. "So that would mean..."

"We're looking at around six and a half months total of gestation, or twenty-six weeks. And that's if Vash carries them full term. Or, well. His equivalent of full term." Judith tilted her head to the side in an uncertain way. "Since this is a multiple pregnancy, it's possible that he won't. Twins are often born a few weeks early."

Vash looked stunned, hand resting across his forehead. "So...sixteen more weeks, at the most."

"Right."

Mismatched hands cupped the gentle mound that held their children, the flesh and blood hand rubbing up and down the side. "I need to savor it while I can, then. I'm already almost halfway through..."

Wolfwood studied Vash's downturned mouth and crinkled brow, the way he was chewing the inside of his lower lip. The expression didn't last long, though. Vash turned his head to look up at Judith, raising his eyebrows. The way his hair flopped across the pillow made Wolfwood puff out a silent chuckle; he looked like an inquisitive bird. Or a paintbrush. 

"What about the other baby?"

Judith gave Vash a rueful smile as she moved the ultrasound wand across his stomach. "Baby B isn't wanting to cooperate. Every time I get in a good position, they move."

"Oh, swell. The last thing we need is another stubborn-ass Wolfwood in this world," Vash lamented, crossing his arms.

Wolfwood flicked his forehead, and Vash squawked, rubbing the spot. "I think you meant another stubborn-ass Saverem."

"He's being mean to meee," Vash whinged up at Judith, who cocked her eyebrow down at him.

"Is he wrong?"

"That's...irrelevant."

"Ah. Here." Judith quickly tapped a key on the machine, and the image on the screen froze. They both turned to look.

Within two seconds, Wolfwood spotted the difference, and his throat seized up tight. Vash seemed to know, as well; his eyes were gigantic, as warm and open as the desert skies.

Judith gave them a knowing smile. "You expected two girls, didn't you."

Wolfwood slowly nodded. He couldn't take his eyes off the still image on the screen.

"A boy?" Vash breathed out, hushed and incredulous. "Really? It's really a boy?"

"Yes, really." Judith had never looked so soft. She put the wand down and patted and rubbed both of their shoulders, and it reminded Wolfwood so much of the rough-yet-sweet way that Melanie had comforted him as a child. "Congratulations, both of you. You're going to have a son and a daughter."

When Vash tugged on Wolfwood's arm with a tearful, pleading look, Wolfwood went willingly, wrapping his arms around Vash as tightly as he dared and burying his face in his neck. Vash was weeping his heart out, his hiccupping sobs puffing against Wolfwood's hair, holding him close with an arm around his neck and the other stroking between his shoulder blades.

"I've never had a son," Vash croaked against Wolfwood's ear, and it shattered through his shaky defenses like a battering ram.

Warm tears moistened his eyes.

He had never seriously entertained the thought of kids until Vash had crashed into his life, and even then, it had been more of an abstract longing for what could've been that preyed on his mind after New Moab, but as a child, as a naive, optimistic child that had never heard the name "Eye of Michael" yet and who liked to pretend he didn't enjoy caring for baby Maylene, he had sometimes dreamt of having a family of his own one day.

As he would be cradling Maylene close after giving her a bottle, rocking her in the old, rickety rocking chair by the window of the orphanage's nursery and watching her sweetly sleeping little face, he would tell himself what a good dad he would be one day, that he would never, ever abandon his kids at an orphanage, that he would keep them safe and happy and love them forever and ever.

Every time, he'd decided he wanted twins. A son and a daughter.

In that moment, he just had to chuckle wetly against Vash's shirt collar.

The Lord truly did work in mysterious ways.

"I love them both so much, I could scream," Vash sobbed.

Nicholas nodded, too choked up to speak.

I think I do, too.

 

⁌

 

Toward the end of week eleven, Vash sat at the small, round table in his room, his foot tucked behind his ankle, using the back of the chair to stretch his back as he listened to Milly's crackling voice over the radio speaker.

"She's all worried that it won't be good enough. You know how she is! Always down on herself, no confidence."

"I'm right here, Milly."

"Yes, you are, ma'am!"

"Ugh. Vash, don't listen to her."

"Too late," he scolded. "Have some faith in yourself, will you? You haven't worked up through the ranks of the paper on pity, you know. You're a good writer."

Meryl scoffed. "How would you know?"

Vash fiddled with a pen on the desk, unaware of the soft grin stealing across his face. "Because I've read your stuff, silly goose."

"O-oh."

The microphone was bumped haphazardly, and Milly cut in with a stage whisper. "She's blushing."

"Milly!" Meryl screeched, and Vash grinned even harder, his own cheeks feeling a bit warm. It was so easy to make Meryl blush, he couldn't be blamed for occasionally doing it on purpose. He could just imagine her face, unevenly splotched with peaches and rose, blue eyes snapping like pilot lights.

He missed her.

As if reading his mind, he heard Meryl scramble for the microphone of the radio, and Milly giggled.

"Oh, by the way! Guess whose time off got approved!" Meryl crowed.

Vash's heart lifted. "When? For how long?"

"We're leaving in a month! Luckily, it's classified as a work trip, so as long as I report in every now and then, we can stay until the b—uh..." Meryl fumbled and cleared her throat awkwardly. "Uh...um..."

Vash took up her slack. "Wow, such a long time?" He rubbed his knuckles into his spine. "How'd you swing that?"

"I'm doing a historical piece on Project SEEDS, and Mr. Brad agreed to show me the ins and outs of the ship for my research."

"Well, we can't wait to see both of you," Vash murmured, smiling over his shoulder at Wolfwood, who had just walked through the door. It closed behind him with a soft whshh. Wolfwood was wiping something dark and smudgy from his hands; he'd probably been cleaning the Punisher, or maybe working on his motorcycle.

Milly broke in. "Oh! Miss Meryl, don't let me forget to bring my gift when we go."

"Huh? You got them something? Ah, I guess Vash's birthday is coming up, isn't it—"

"No, it's not just for Mr. Vash. It's the same gift I've gotten all my siblings when they were expecting. It's not much, just a little thing, you know, but—"

Vash and Wolfwood stared at each other. Vash covered his mouth.

Meryl interrupted, sounding a bit like she was being throttled. "Expecting?! I—you—what makes you thi—"

Milly continued, hilariously serene in contrast. "Well, Mr. Vash looked awfully poorly last time when we visited, a lot like my sisters usually did when they had morning sickness. Considering he had something important to say to you and Mr. Wolfwood, and with how funny and secretive he was acting, plus the fact that I saw him rubbing his belly like a mom would when she's carrying a baby, I made an educated guess." Vash could just imagine Milly's triumphant, kitty-mouthed smirk, the smug L she made with her index finger and thumb and held up to her chin, with the other fist planted on her hip. "Just call me Milly Thompson, P.D.!"

"Super sleuth of the fuckin' century," Wolfwood drawled. Vash lowered his head down to the desk, his shoulders shaking with helpless laughter.

He heard Meryl huff. "Did you ever stop to think that Vash might not be pregnant?"

"Oh, no, not even once," Milly said cheerfully.

"Did it ever occur to you to ask how he could be pregnant at all?"

"Well, I suppose that's none of my business, ma'am."

Vash just laughed even louder, unable to contain it. "You're a treasure, Milly," he chuckled, wiping tears away.

"No, you!" Milly piped back, as she always did when he gave her a compliment. Vash's heart could barely take it, she was so sweet.

Meryl sputtered for a moment more. "I...how could...you know what? We gotta go. I have so many questions. We'll see you in a month."

"Oh, okay! Bye, Mr. Vash, Mr. Wolfwood! Take care!"

"Bye!" "Later." Vash's and Wolfwood's voices overlapped. 

The line buzzed with static and clicked, and they were gone.

"Damn. Big girl's more perceptive than I gave her credit for," Wolfwood muttered.

"Well...I guess that saves us an awkward sit-down." Vash turned his torso from side to side, trying to get his back to pop to no avail. "I almost wouldn't be surprised if she knows I'm a Plant."

Wolfwood snorted. "Nahh, no fuckin' way."

Vash laughed.

 

⁌

 

(The narrator shuffled his papers and cleared his throat, leaning into his microphone with a sheepish air about him.

"Milly did, in fact, know all along.")

 

⁌

Notes:

*you read that right.

Let me know what you think if you want 💕

Chapter 7: another life² (part 1)

Notes:

Yeah I KNOWWWWUUHHH I said the chapter count wouldn't go up again. I get carried away, okay?? 🤧 I'm just not even gonna promise it won't again. I don't think it will, but we'll see. I do have a few deleted scenes so far...

Also hi, I'm sorry this took so long. Life is busy and I hate being an adult. 😩 But this chapter is extra long to make up for it <3

Disclaimer again, I'm not a medical professional of any sort. We fly by the seats of our pants in this household. Well, by that and by the probably literal hours of research I've done lmao if nobody got me I know Google got me, amen

Please enjoy 🙏

Out of the corner of his eye as he passed by the table, Wolfwood watched Vash's Adam's apple bob with a laborious swallow. He did his best not to openly stare, not wanting to put Vash under even more pressure by scrutinizing him, and sank down onto the sofa in the corner of the lounge with his coffee mug to offer some silent support.

When a couple of minutes passed and Vash was still frozen like a statue, Wolfwood crossed his legs and murmured, "The sooner you do it, the sooner we'll know."

"I know, I know, don't rush me," Vash half-snapped, peevish, like he'd had some kind of hair-trigger set to trip as soon as Wolfwood inevitably spoke.

Unperturbed by the preggo moodiness that was becoming more and more common, Wolfwood shrugged one shoulder and lifted his coffee mug to his nose, breathing the rich, nutty aroma in with appreciation before indulging in a sip. It would've gone perfectly with a cigarette, but he wasn't about to expose Vash (and, by extension, the kids) to that laundry list of awful chemicals. Smoking was prohibited on the ship, anyway. Luida would probably teleport behind him with garden shovel in hand and brain him if he lit up in here.

Instead, he observed Vash as much as he could without looking too hard.

An uneasy sweat glittered on Vash's brow, catching in the lines of stress that creased it. His large frame hunched over the table with the resigned, dismal air of a man on death row, poking at the cheese and crackers on the plate like they were going to grow teeth and snap at him and giving the peach-flavored juice box next to the plate an equally wary side-eye.

It might have made for a bit of a ridiculous, overly dramatic picture if Wolfwood hadn't known all too well why Vash was so worked up. With the memories of dry-heaving his damn intestines out every time he so much as caught a whiff of food probably still fresh on his mind, no wonder he didn't want to eat. Wolfwood had never seen anyone so miserably sick in his life, save for a couple of the Hopeland kids who had already been terminally ill when they arrived and were still buried there to this day.

But, with Vash tolerating his daily water intake better and better, and, more worryingly, the growth patterns of the babies a little too far below normal in the past two weeks, Judith had told Vash at his last checkup that it was time to attempt solid food again. Wolfwood had thought Vash was going to well up and cry, but, completely at odds with his petrified expression, he had still agreed.

Wolfwood wasn't sure he'd ever seen someone besides Melanie exhibit such...such unconditional care before. Such no-nonsense devotion to another's well-being. No matter how unpleasant the task Vash had been assigned was, whether it be chugging a thick, radioactive-looking orange liquid that made him green around the gills to test his tolerance to glucose, or huffing and whimpering and squeezing Wolfwood's hand through Judith sucking a sample of his amniotic fluid out of the side of his belly with a horribly long needle and syringe that made Wolfwood's stomach roil just looking at it, Vash always just closed his eyes and said "anything for them." Hell, sometimes he chanted it under his breath like a mantra if he was nervous or hurting enough.

Bonkers. It figured, though. Wolfwood had long suspected Vash was going to be like this while he was pregnant, stubbornly set on protecting, nurturing, ready to offer himself up as a sacrifice in any way possible if it meant keeping the babies he carried alive and well.

And yeah. That attitude made Wolfwood more than a little leery. Did he love the babies? Of course he did, so much that he could just about bust. Was he equally worried about Vash and his selfless-to-a-fault ways? Uh, also yes.

Maybe he was paranoid, but this was Vash he was talking about.

Breaking Wolfwood from his thoughts, Vash shook his hands out with a throaty, pissed-off noise, thunking his elbows on the table and scrubbing the heels of his hands over his eyes. "This is stupid."

Wolfwood sipped his coffee. "Nah. Pretty normal, I reckon. You ain't had solid food for weeks. Anyone would be nervous."

Vash's right leg bounced with excess energy underneath the table, his breaths quick and uneven like he was gearing up to do something truly terrifying. Compassion pricked Wolfwood in the heart. Poor guy.

"There's a trash can right beside you," he reminded.

"I know," Vash moaned before Wolfwood had even finished his sentence, resigned and exhausted. I know I'm being ridiculous, his tone said.

When five more minutes passed, Wolfwood softened his approach.

"The sprouts need more nutrients than that meal replacement stuff can give, needle noggin. They gotta keep growin'."

Vash's hands moved to his round belly. Wolfwood could clearly see the inner battle playing out in his head, concern for the babies warring with dread and anxiety.

He remembered the days when it wasn't always like that. When he would struggle more often than not to get an accurate read on Vash's expressions because of how tight of a lid he kept on them. Not these days, though; now, most of the time, Vash was an open book that nearly rivaled Milly for the "easiest to read countenance" award.

Wolfwood felt honored, in a way, to be one of the few people in this wretched world that Vash felt safe enough around to drop his many masks.

Determination filled Vash's eyes, and his shoulders lifted with a deep breath. With one swift motion, he snatched up one of the cheese-topped crackers and threw it in his mouth, chewing quickly and swallowing. Then, he leaned back with his hands death-gripping his knees, eyeing the trash can once, then once more, as if making absolutely sure it was really there and he wasn't just imagining it.

"Did it taste okay?" Wolfwood asked cautiously after a beat of thick silence.

Vash's eyes were distant, too bright. "Yeah. Fine."

Despite his previous, no-nonsense encouragement, Wolfwood found himself on edge, too. Heart beating faster, stomach like a rock.

The temperature regulator of the ship kicked on, whirring softly from the vents in the floor. Someone down the hall laughed, echoing off the titanium walls. Wolfwood could hear Vash breathing, still just a hair too fast.

When five or so minutes had passed, Vash hesitantly reached for the juice box, taking a few shallow sips through the thin little straw. Immediately, it felt like the stopwatch had reset to zero, and they were watching and waiting and wringing their hands all over again, wondering if Vash's stomach could tolerate two new things at once.

Fuck's sake. If this was stressful for Wolfwood, he couldn't even imagine the internal turmoil Vash was going through. His brain was probably whirring at five thousand iles per hour.

Feeling awkward and restless, Wolfwood set his cooling coffee aside and cracked his knuckles to break the silence. When Vash didn't speak, he cleared his throat.

"Well?" He finally asked.

It took Vash a moment to answer, but when he did, he was hushed and still, as if talking too loud or moving too fast might scare the food back out.

"I think...I might be okay."

Wolfwood's heart nearly smacked against the bottom of his esophagus, soaring with desperate hope.

"Well, try to eat another," he urged, trying to temper his excitement. It would be fucking unbearable if they both started celebrating prematurely and Vash ended up having to grab for the trash can.

Like a spooked animal, Vash finished the entire plate and sucked the juice box dry. No nausea whatsoever reared its ugly head. Then, after sitting in dazed, bewildered silence for a moment like he couldn't believe this was real life, he looked over at Wolfwood, eyes glistening, and said, "I think I'm still thirsty."

Wolfwood almost hooked his ankles together and wiped out on the floor in his haste to leap up and bring Vash a glass of water.

Which he drank every drop of. And nothing fucking happened.

The real test came later that evening at dinner, but, as if he'd never even been ill, Vash was able to slowly, carefully eat an entire plate of egg fried rice. He kept having to reach up to wipe streams of tears off of his cheeks, sniffling. The hand not holding his fork cradled the babies all the while.

"I had forgotten how good food tasted," he said, soft and wet and laden with emotion.

Wolfwood had to swallow hard enough to make his throat cramp to keep his own tears stifled.

When they returned to the infirmary that evening, the old lady was so elated at their good news that Wolfwood thought she was going to cut a jig on the spot. As much as her tendency to poke and tease like they'd been friends forever scraped against the grain of his nerves and made him want to duck away from her casually affectionate touches, he could tell she did so out of care, not malice. Like a smart-aleck, slightly grumpy aunt.

He didn't mind her as much as he once had. Besides, anyone who could make Vash the Stubborn Idiot listen and obey for more than ten seconds at a time was at least okay in his book.

Since Vash had been scheduled to keep the feeding tube in for six weeks, Judith recommended that they leave it in until those six weeks were up, just as an extra nutrition boost.

"The babies would only benefit from it, if you think you can stand having it in for another week," she advised. "They really need to put on some good weight in the next couple of weeks."

Wolfwood expected some whinging and theatrics, but Vash just grinned as brightly as the desert suns, itching his nose with one metal finger and resting his other hand on his belly, looking happier and healthier than he had in a very long time.

"For them, I can handle anything."

And if that smile somehow managed to break and mend Wolfwood's heart back together in one fell swoop, well, that was no one's business but his own.

That night, as Vash slept peacefully propped up in his infirmary bed, Wolfwood watched him with stinging eyes. He was such an unapologetic sleeper, with his silly mouth hanging open and his blankets strewn this way and that and his hands protectively cupped at the underside of the bump that cradled their unborn future.

Muscle memory took Wolfwood to Vash's sound-proofed room, his fingers keying in the pass code with ease.

He knelt down on the floor of the empty room, and with his forehead pressed to the cold, hard surface and tears threatening to choke him, he poured out his heart to the heavens, overwhelmed with such powerful gratitude that all he could do for several minutes was weep.

Finally. Finally, Vash's suffering had ended.

Please, keep them healthy.

 

⁌

 

As soon as the door pulled open and Vash stepped through, something in an untouchable place within him breathed a soft sigh.

He'd been walking around the ship for some exercise, and to soothe the stir-craziness that came from staying in one place for longer than he was accustomed to. Wolfwood was currently tied up in the lower levels of the ship with Brad and several other handymen, helping them fix a few faulty fuel lines. "Gotta pull my weight around here, somehow," he'd said. Of course, they'd banned Vash from helping since there could be harmful vapors. So, out of sorts and itching to move, Vash had found himself heading to the Plant chamber as if drawn by a magnet. He hadn't visited in a couple of years, so a visit was definitely in order.

It still looked the same, with dozens of Plant bulbs glowing tranquil blue all along the walls and ceiling. The technicians on duty cheerfully waved at Vash from the other side of the cavernous, cylindrical room when they saw him enter, and he lifted a hand in response with a smile. No matter how many times it happened, it still took him aback in a good way to be so unfailingly trusted by the residents of Home.

Wandering down the middle bridge, he marveled at the quiet contentedness that was rapidly blanketing his heart. Perhaps this was exactly what he'd needed. His sisters were healthy and thriving; he could feel the song-like hum of their combined energy deep in his chest, and it unwound a lot of the inner tension he'd been building lately.

Carrying new life was an incredible experience that he treated with due care and reverence, but it was also draining and stressful at times. Wolfwood was always telling Vash to stop clenching his jaw or to loosen his shoulder muscles these days, and he usually wouldn't even be aware he was tensing up. It was just second nature for him to be on edge now. Thankfully, now that the morning sickness was as good as gone, some of that stress was beginning to ease.

As he strolled along, he kept his hands tucked in the big pocket of the faded red hoodie he wore. His right hand was always cold these days for some reason, but that was okay. He liked holding the babies while he warmed his hand, stroking his thumb back and forth across his bump inside the toasty pocket.

(Plus, he could stick his icy fingertips up the back of Wolfwood's shirt when he least expected it. Nick could come up with some truly colorful swear word combinations when he was startled.)

Most of the Plants were resting quietly while they passively produced power, but Vash could feel that a few of them noticed when he entered the room, and one even partially unfurled her huge petals to peek over them at him, her pearlescent, wide-set eyes bright and curious.

She likely wouldn't have given a human a second glance, but she knew when her kin was near.

Vash could sense an abstract approximation of how his sisters were feeling that became much stronger if they were connected, and their body language was sometimes uncannily human, but there were no spoken words. Every now and then, he would catch just the tiniest physical noise from one of them, ethereal clicks and warbles that were muffled by suspension fluid, but other than that, they were silent. Some people found it eerie. Vash found it comforting.

The Plant that was observing him unwrapped herself completely, drifting to the thick glass wall of her bulb and pressing one spindly hand there. The fine sprinkling of hair on Vash's arm raised as her life force reached out to him, his skin tickling as she ran invisible feelers all over him. A distinct feeling of recognition and beckoning brushed his mind.

With a few taps of the data pad connected to her station, the bulb extended from the wall to come meet him, and he reached out his hand to greet his sister's with a smile, flattening his palm against the glass. The back of his hand briefly shimmered with lines of light, and his fingertips buzzed.

As their energies wove together, the curious feeling intensified, and Vash couldn't help but grin as the Plant stared into his face with slightly narrowed eyes, as if she could sense something was different about him, but didn't know what. Did that mean she couldn't sense the babies' presence, either? That was intriguing. Maybe Wolfwood's genes had dominated more than Vash had initially thought.

He lightly tapped his belly with one prosthetic fingertip, a deceptively shallow bump under the thick, loose hoodie. His sister stared down at it, slowly tilting her head from one side to the other. When she met his eyes again, he could've sworn she was pouting.

That doesn't tell me anything, silly, he imagined her huffing.

So, he gathered his hoodie up with his prosthetic arm, exposing his obviously pregnant middle to the chilly air.

Plants didn't generally emote very much with their faces, though Vash had definitely seen subtle smiles and frowns before. Therefore, it nearly knocked him on his ass when his sister's mouth actually parted in muted shock, her otherworldly eyes widening and blinking like she was utterly dumbfounded. Her eyes met his own again, then she drifted lower, eye level with the bump.

She gently thunked her forehead against the glass a couple of times, and Vash felt a wash of longing and impatience from her. Shuffling closer, he pressed his stomach against the glass, suppressing a shiver at the zip of cold and nestling his right hand back in the rumpled folds of his hoodie.

Energy cascaded over him from head to toe, as familiar to him as his own heartbeat, and his bioluminescent patterns emerged full force, shining brightly in response to his sister's call.

That, he had expected. He had not, however, expected the fluttering, twitching feeling deep down between his hips.

His gaze whipped down to his belly. He touched his side, pressing inward on pliable skin. His heart lub-dubbed in his ears, his lungs still and breathless.

Did I imagine that?

But no, he hadn't, because it happened again, and again. The smallest tremble against his insides, one that made something behind his sternum swoop with sudden thrill, as if he'd just caught air on a steep sand dune.

He stared at his sister in baffled silence. She briefly lifted her head, and the widest, sweetest smile he'd ever seen a Plant give curled her delicate lips. Just as quickly, she pressed her forehead to the glass again, as if she didn't want to miss a single second of...whatever this was.

Vash couldn't help but laugh, delighted and touched. He let his hand rest on the little shelf his upper belly was slowly becoming as the weeks went by.

"Hi," he whispered around the lump in his throat, rubbing his fingertips in a small circle. "Are you saying hello?"

As if in response to his voice this time, the quick little pitters of movement in his belly increased. He had to press his fist against his quivering lips when his sister turned her head and closed her eyes, her temple to the glass as if she were trying to nestle her cheek on his stomach. A faraway, bubbly chirp sounded, muffled by fluid.

Another flurry of kicks threatened to bring Vash to his knees, emotion crashing through him like a tidal wave of old Earth. He squeezed his burning eyes shut, sending tears dribbling down his cheeks, and pressed his forehead to the glass as he broke down into quiet, chest-wringing sobbing.

His sweet, precious children were blessedly alive and wriggling around inside him. He'd been watching them swell his stomach outward for weeks now, but to actually, physically feel them move...he'd never felt such overwhelming relief.

With a heaving, hiccupping gasp, Vash reached up to his Lost Tech earring, tapping out the Morse code password that would activate the tiny VHF radio inside it and broadcast to the other walkie-talkie, disguised as a fountain pen that Wolfwood often kept hooked on the collar of his shirt if they were separated.

"Nick?" He croaked, wiping his streaming nose with the knuckle of his index finger.

After a moment of dead static, someone picked up that wasn't Wolfwood, their voice crackly and tinny.

"Yello? Who's in 'ner? This thang on?"

Vash's breath wavered with a watery chuckle. Only Saul said hello like that. He was a cranky, unsmiling man a bit older than Brad, and while most others gave him a wide berth, he couldn't fool Vash. His heart was as good as gold.

He sniffled and swallowed. "Hey, it's Vash. Is Wolfwood still down there?"

"...uhhhhhhhh, yeah, I see 'im. He left his li'l doohickey sittin' over here on the...Hol' on."

There was a scratch, then a rustle and a bump against the pen, then a murmur. Then, Wolfwood's voice came through.

"What is it?"

"Can you come to the Plant chamber?" Vash pleaded.

He could practically see Wolfwood bristle with dread. "You don't sound good. Are you alone?"

Vash sniffled again and cleared his throat, hastily wiping his tears with the neck of his hoodie and realizing too late that it probably did sound like something bad had happened if Wolfwood could hear that he'd been crying.

"I'm fine, honest! And so are the babies. Please, just come? I would rather tell you in person."

A quiet curse, then it sounded like the pen clattered to a hard surface. Guilt pulled Vash's heart downward; he hadn't meant to scare Wolfwood, but in fairness, Wolfwood did have a pretty thready hair trigger when it came to Vash and the babies, and it was stretching thinner and thinner as time went on.

On the other end, there was another rustle, then Saul made a noise like a mumble of disapproval with his mouth closed. "...coulda just taken it widdim. Dumbass."

Vash snorted, smiling in spite of himself. He wiped a stray tear from the bare skin of his belly. "Keep the pen safe, will you? He'll need it back."

"A'ight."

He switched his earring off. The Plant hadn't moved her head, and was now curled up next to the glass like a happy cat in a lap, silently basking in what Vash had to assume was some sort of connection with the babies. He longed to know what she was feeling, or if the babies' brains were even developed enough to respond coherently. Did they already have thoughts and emotions of their own? Could they sense how much raw, undiluted love was being funneled through Vash's body...?

Vash's throat suddenly clogged up again, and he fought down probably the twentieth urge to cry in the past day. How could anyone look at these Plants and see anything but sentient, intelligent creatures? He had half a mind to disinfect himself and open her bulb and climb in to give her a snuggle, but he wasn't sure how the nitrogen-rich environment would affect the only half-Independent babies in his uterus. He could breathe in suspension fluid if he turned his brain off to how similar it felt to water, but he wasn't going to risk it.

At least, not without the okay from Judith and supervision from Luida.

It took Wolfwood all of four minutes to come barreling down the bridge at a sprint, skidding to a stop a few feet away as he took in the scene before him with an uneasy stance. Vash beckoned with one hand.

Wolfwood eyed the Plant with confusion as he walked closer, looking less harried now that he could clearly see that Vash wasn't doubled over in pain.

"What's she doing?" Wolfwood whispered.

"I think they're resonating," Vash whispered back. It felt like if they talked too loud, they would be interrupting something sacred. He took Wolfwood's hand and brought it to cup over his rounded side.

"My hands're all smudged with rusty junk," Wolfwood protested quietly.

"I'm not worried about that." Vash covered Wolfwood's hand with his own, thumbing over his bony knuckles. "I felt them move."

Having been gazing down at Vash's bump, Wolfwood did a double take up at his face. "No fuckin' way," he breathed.

"Way. See if you can feel."

The babies were still moving periodically, as if they, too, were excited to be felt. It was such a weird feeling, like when a strained muscle keeps twitching after a workout, but more solid, tiny, and entirely unpredictable.

After a couple of minutes, though, Wolfwood shook his head. "I think they're too little for me to feel anything, needle noggin."

Vash tried not to wilt. "Probably so, yeah. I didn't consider...if I'm just now feeling them, then they. Yeah. Sorry." He rubbed the back of his neck, feeling foolish. "I shouldn't have...I didn't mean to freak you out and make you run all the way here thinking something terrible had happened. I just didn't want you to miss it if you could feel it."

"No harm done." Despite not being able to feel any kicks, Wolfwood's hand stayed on Vash's belly, his other arm sliding around Vash's hip to draw him closer. "Besides, I'll be able to feel 'em soon enough, with how fast they're growing."

The threat of impending tears crowded Vash's throat once more, and he narrowly swallowed around it. Get a grip.

"Yeah," he rasped, immediately cringing at how his voice cracked.

He could practically feel Wolfwood picking through his brain in the quiet moment that followed.

"Does that make you feel some kinda way?" Wolfwood murmured.

A cross between a sigh and a sob left Vash's mouth, pretenses dropped. He nodded, tucking against Wolfwood's side, drawing comfort from his sturdy presence. Wolfwood's lips pressed to his cheek, right over the clear adhesive that anchored the nasojejunal tube to his skin, and for some reason, that sweet, genuine gesture practically shoved more tears out of Vash's tear ducts. Quickly, he reached up to scrub the tears away with the sleeve of his hoodie.

"I'm tired of crying over nothing, for one thing."

A wrinkle appeared on Wolfwood's brow. "I wouldn't call it nothin'. Now, talk to me. It ain't good for you to choke all that shit down by yourself. You know you feel better when you talk about it, so don't be stubborn."

Vash narrowed his eyes. "Wow. Pot, meet kettle."

Wolfwood mouth flattened into a line.

"Okay, okay..." Vash sniffled, feeling congested. His prosthetic hand rubbed up and down the side of his belly Wolfwood's hand wasn't occupying. "It's just...all so fast. I'm worried I'm going to blink and five years will be gone, and I won't have savored every moment like I should've." A pained noise crept from his throat, and he rubbed the inner corners of his eyes with cold, gunmetal fingers. "I already don't deserve them. I should be cherishi—"

"Hey." Wolfwood's eyes had been gentle, even awkwardly sympathetic, up until that last sentence. Now, they were narrowed. "Quit. You of all people deserve happiness after the hell you've been through."

Vash wanted to drop-kick himself in the head for going down the train of thought that always got Wolfwood riled up, but his vision blurred with fresh, hot tears, and a devastated little laugh fell from his quivering mouth along with the truth. "My hands are covered in blood."

Wolfwood scoffed. "As if mine aren't."

Vash gave a humorless breath of his own. "Nowhere near as bad as me."

"Oh, fuck off," Wolfwood shot back, leaning away and scowling. "You and both know I'm soaked up to the elbows in cold blood, and that's not some stupid attempt at a pissing contest, it's reality."

Despite his best efforts, Vash's hackles raised. "Nicholas—"

"Don't you 'Nicholas' me, you stubborn, martyr-complexed bastard," Wolfwood said severely. Vash had to quash an indignant noise. "It isn't even remotely comparable. The only reason you killed anyone at July is because someone who will not be named mind-raped you and forced you into a horrible situation with no real way out." The point-blank words cracked against Vash's ribs like a physical blow. "You would've never made that choice on your own, and you know it. You were mitigating his insane fuck-up. Me? I've killed more people than I'm comfortable admitting to you. Either because I was paid to, or just because they were in my way and it was the easiest solution. I had infinite opportunities to question my orders or try to get away from the Eye, and I never did until I met you. Now, tell me." Wolfwood's fingers tightened ever so slightly on Vash's belly, just enough for emphasis, never enough to hurt. "How is it that you're even letting me touch them right now? With all the sins I've committed?"

"Don't say that," Vash burst out, but Wolfwood cut him off instantaneously, predicting exactly what Vash would say.

"And why not? Why shouldn't I? It's true, just as true as you think it is for you. And yet, here you are, hell-bent on believing that you're the only one who doesn't deserve happiness." The look on Nick's face was equal parts incredulous and exasperated. "Blondie, that's some backward-ass bullshit."

He let go and stepped away entirely, and Vash immediately missed his body heat. No, don't go, please.

"It's not the same," Vash began, voice trembling.

"Why," Wolfwood barked.

"Because I..."

Memories of July flooded back. Stumbling along with splintered bones, in too much pain to even cry. The dust that had coated his palm in black specks every time he coughed into it. The unbearable realization of what he'd done, of how many innocent lives he'd vaporized. Snuffed out like candles in high wind.

He'd fallen to his knees and vomited, over and over, until blood stained the bile in the sand.

It wasn't the same.

Wolfwood grabbed Vash's shoulders and turned him so they faced each other, glaring directly into his eyes. "Either we both deserve to be happy, or neither of us do. Which is it? Huh?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Vash saw the Plant drift back to the center of her bulb and begin re-wrapping herself in her petals, either satisfied with her snuggle session with the babies or, more likely, just unimpressed with their spat.

Vash envied her. He shouldn't have started this argument, the same one they'd had a hundred times before. With a tap on the data pad, he sent his sister's bulb back to its proper place in the wall.

"I can't give you the answer you want," Vash whispered.

Wolfwood's grip loosened. His anger visibly drained away, leaving him looking more tired and sad than anything.

"We've both fucked up, blondie," he murmured. "Just because they ain't exactly the same breed of transgression doesn't mean you're more to blame than me somehow. We just gotta live with the truth and try to do better."

Vash's cheek itched with the tear that rolled down it. "I have no hope of ever paying for what I've done."

Wolfwood leaned closer, his eyes narrowing, brows upturned. "You don't have to. I've seen you on your knees during the night, when you think I'm not lookin'." He brushed the tear from Vash's cheek. "A cold-blooded murderer wouldn't be praying for forgiveness."

Vash sucked a quavering sniffle in, throat aching. Another tear snaked down his nose when he hung his head. "...I doubt my prayers are good enough."

"Ah, right. My bad," Wolfwood huffed. "I forgot that verse in the book of Dumbasseronomy. What is that, verse twenty-one? 'Thou shalt self-flagellate for thy sins until the end of fuckin' time, but if and only if thy name is Vash the Stampede?'"

Vash opened his mouth once, twice, then crossed his arms, quietly frowning through his tears.

"Look at me," Wolfwood murmured. "...please."

When Vash looked up, Wolfwood's eyes looked like the night sky, catching the blue light from all around them, full of profound sorrow.

"Atoning for your sins by never letting yourself be happy is nowhere in the Good Book, needle noggin."

Vash dropped his gaze, unable to maintain eye contact. It was too much. Too close. Wolfwood leaned down into his field of vision, waiting until Vash looked at him again.

"The whole point of grace is that it isn't deserved," Wolfwood whispered, reaching out to cup the side of Vash's head, tracing his thumb over the shell of his ear, down to the golden hoop in the lobe.

Vash wasn't sure if he believed that, but hearing it from Wolfwood's lips, said so earnestly, so pleadingly, he found that he almost wanted to.

When Wolfwood pulled Vash into an embrace, he went without protest, suddenly realizing that his heart had been crying to be closer, to feel Wolfwood's arms around him. He nestled his face in Wolfwood's shoulder with a weary sigh, all of his anger seeping away like sand from an hourglass. He breathed Wolfwood in, the musky, wonderfully human scent that was completely distinct to him along with the subtle, oily sweetness of gun cleaner. Something deep in the wilder corners of Vash's brain reveled in that scent. That was the scent of the father of his babies.

Wolfwood rubbed Vash's lower back, and Vash felt his nose brush against his temple. He'd begun to notice that the further into pregnancy he got, the more tactile Wolfwood's affection was becoming. He'd never been so touchy-feely before.

"Pretty soon, we ain't gonna be able to hug like this until they're born."

Vash turned his head and looked down at the floor through sticky lashes. "Probably not." He squeezed Wolfwood a bit tighter for a second. He knew Wolfwood was probably trying to give him an out with the subject change, but he didn't want to just leave it there. "I'm sorry. I don't try to be frustrating. But I know I do. Frustrate you."

"You do," was the quiet answer. "Sometimes."

The second "sorry" came out as a barely-audible whisper, ashamed.

Pursed lips rested against Vash's neck. Not quite kissing, but the promise thereof. "I know." There was a pause, in which Wolfwood audibly swallowed. Vash could hear that his mouth was open, his breath hovering on a "y" sound, like it was taking effort to push the words out. "...you know why I say all that stuff, right?"

Vash bit back an irritated sigh. "Because you want me to think. I get it, I know."

"It's not just that. I, um. Vash, I—no, wait, st...s-stay like this."

Vash had been about to pull back so he could see, but the raspy break in Wolfwood's voice and the usage of his actual name practically pinned him in place. Wolfwood's breathing halted and started a few times, as if he was searching for the right words.

Just as Vash opened his mouth again, Wolfwood's arms tightened around him.

"I say it 'cause I love you."

Vash's breath caught so hard he almost coughed and choked.

Wolfwood's forehead buried in Vash's shoulder. "I ain't no good at this. Jesus Christ," he muttered. "But...when I hear you talkin' down about yourself, sometimes I can't just...say nothin'. Cause I...I..."

"You don't have to push yourself," Vash tried to say, sensing how uncomfortable he was, but Wolfwood cut him off.

"No. You need to know. You and...and the kids."

This time, when Vash pulled back, Wolfwood let him. The tense, desperate look on his face broke Vash's heart, like he was begging Vash to understand.

"I know you love them," Vash murmured, reaching up to tuck a lock of charcoal behind Wolfwood's ear, then skimmed his prosthetic thumb over Wolfwood's stubble; it made a soft, bristly noise. He pressed their foreheads together, the tips of their noses brushing. "And I know you love me. There isn't a doubt in my mind, Nicholas."

Wolfwood sighed, trembling. His hand gripped the back of Vash's neck. "Good," he whispered.

For a moment, Vash just closed his eyes, adoration flowing along his every nerve and vein, until Wolfwood made a soft sound, like a tired little whuff of a laugh through his nose.

"I appreciate the gesture, but all you're gonna do is burn a red mark onto my forehead if you keep going."

Vash leaned back, surprised to see Wolfwood's face lit up by an ambient glow. He lifted his flesh hand to see that his markings were searing bright once more, and warmth that had nothing to do with energy flooded his cheeks.

"Sorry..."

"Quit apologizing. I wasn't serious. I just felt a little tingling." Wolfwood rubbed his forehead. "And a floaty feeling in my head. Like...I dunno. It was kinda nice."

Vash brightened. Well, figuratively. He was already physically bright and probably blinding Wolfwood. He closed his eyes and willed his markings inward, then pulled Wolfwood in for a kiss to the middle of his forehead. His gaze roved over the distinct, handsome (and blushing) features he adored, wondering which ones their children might inherit.

If neither of them got that gorgeous nose or those inky blue eyes...well, there was always next time.

"D'you at least get what I mean, though?" Wolfwood still looked disgruntled with himself. "You say it to me so often. I should at least be able to say it back without getting squirrely."

A faint smile pressed Vash's lips together, his eyes half-lidded and pointed down at his ever-changing body as he considered many things.

Like Wolfwood washing his clothes more frequently to keep even the barest hint of nicotine away from Vash's lungs.

Or how many times at ungodly hours of the morning he had held Vash's pale, half-conscious head up by the forehead over the toilet, wiping a string of sticky, yellowish acid from his lips and chin and whispering to him that he was okay.

Or the fact that he handled Vash's feeding tube with no help needed from Judith anymore, experience and sheer devotion guiding his hands.

Or even just the night before, when he had thought that Vash was already asleep for the night and had tucked him in with heartbreaking tenderness that belied the destructive strength his hands were capable of, then climbed into bed behind him and snuggled in, protectively draping his arm over Vash's rounded stomach.

Vash leaned in to rest a tender kiss on Wolfwood's mouth, one that was softly reciprocated and lingered like a sigh. When their lips separated, his chest felt warm with the conviction in his next words.

"You say it plenty."

 

⁌

 

Once Vash reached the halfway point of the pregnancy at thirteen weeks, which was really more like twenty-ish weeks if they were being technical about it, it was genuinely disconcerting how fast the babies started growing. Wolfwood almost couldn't keep up; every day, hell, maybe even every few hours, he could've sworn that Vash's bump stuck out a bit further than the last time he'd taken a good look.

At first, he thought that "every few hours" might be an exaggeration, but no; they took to measuring Vash's waist with a flexible tape measure every morning and night, and yeah: his belly actually was growing that quickly.

Wolfwood wasn't sure if that was adorable or terrifying. He decided on somewhere in the middle, a stomach-fluttering mish-mash of both.

Another fun and unnerving change was that the kids were finally getting strong enough for their kicks and wiggles to be felt from the outside with no room for doubt. No more "Wolfwood, come quick and feel!" followed by "...was that gas or was that a kick?"; when they kicked, it was obvious, sometimes even visible, and it made them feel so wonderfully, terrifyingly real.

Wolfwood would be crusty-eyed and half-asleep in the early-morning stillness, tangled with Vash underneath the sheets, when he would feel one of the babies writhe against his chest, or his stomach, or whatever other part of his body Vash was currently draped across like a gigantic, pregnant cat, and it was a bucket of cold water to the face every time.

With his breathing put on pause in fear of waking Vash from much-needed sleep, Wolfwood would extend shaking fingertips to touch the sleep-heated fabric stretched over Vash's swollen stomach, gently pressing over the inward shift he'd just felt. Sometimes, the babies slept on, unaware of their dad's internal screaming. Other times, they responded to his touch, squirming and rolling and plodding their tiny feet into his hand. He had no idea how Vash slept through it.

They were so alive, so unlike the lifeless seeds that Vash had been forced to birth too many times, that it made Nicholas' chest hot-cold with elation and grief.

After New Moab, nightmares of those terrible few hours where all Vash could do was try not to scream had tormented Wolfwood's sleep for a solid month. Even after Knives had leveled July to a lifeless crater and Vash had been presumed dead, as if to add insult to injury, Wolfwood's dreams had still been haunted by Vash's hair-raising muffled shrieks and the bittersweet scent of amniotic fluid. At the time, he'd thought it was cruel (and well-deserved) that he couldn't escape. Vash's spirit was ripping and clawing at his psyche through his dreams, a wailing banshee mourning the dead fetuses that had been all Wolfwood's fault.

He could only imagine what Meryl's dreams had been like. Yet another shred of her innocent naiveté had died in that cramped little bathroom, watching Vash suffer through such excruciating pain all because he'd dared to love them. Wolfwood could still see the dullness Meryl's eyes that had persisted for days, like the light had been snatched right out of them, betraying her heartsickness. There was no way she had escaped that whole thing mentally unscathed, but she had never really talked about it. She hadn't been great at talking about her own feelings since Roberto passed.

Perhaps, one day, they should.

Despite the unavoidable comparisons of this pregnancy to the last, Wolfwood just had to keep reminding himself that the tiny buns currently baking in Vash's oven weren't the poor, ill-fated children of New Moab. Those kids had been laid to rest to the best of Wolfwood's piss-poor ability, and he was just going to have to work through the complicated feelings of it all one step at a time, like he should've all those years ago, instead of repressing it like a dumbass.

They'd been given another chance. He wasn't going to waste it.

...honestly, sometimes, it almost felt a little too much like that. Like "another chance." Like something astronomically worse had been avoided by the skin of their teeth, and whatever that something was, it was always lurking just next to them, watching from the grey mist of their own shadows.

Now, granted, it was just a sad fact that Vash would always struggle with nightmares. After all the loss and betrayal and traumatizing injuries and horrors far beyond human comprehension he'd been through in his hundred and fifty-three years of living, it only made sense that the worst of those things would occasionally revisit him in sleep. But lately, when Wolfwood gingerly shook Vash awake from whatever bad dream was causing him to whimper and toss in his sleep, Vash would cling to him tightly enough to nearly hurt, breathing hard and refusing to let go for minutes on end. There was a chilling deadness that glazed his eyes when it happened, like he was dangling at the very end of his rope and the knot keeping his feet anchored was slowly coming undone.

One night, after a particularly rough awakening from honest-to-God screaming in his sleep, Vash dissolved into hysterical sobbing that flooded Wolfwood's body with stinging adrenaline. He had never, ever heard Vash cry like that; wounded and feral and hopeless.

Gasping and choking, Vash fumbled his hand underneath Wolfwood's shirt to flatten his flesh and bone palm over his heart, then, as if that wasn't enough of a stab to the stomach, pressed quivering fingers underneath the right side of Wolfwood's jawline.

Wolfwood closed his eyes in misery. Oh, Heavenly Father.

He reached up to grasp Vash's wrist, rubbing his thumb across the strained tendons on the inside. A torrent of unintelligible, breathless noises broke up Vash's hyperventilating, with grief so condensed that Wolfwood felt the press of tears in his own eyes.

"Breathe, needle noggin," he whispered. Just like he had all those years ago.

"Can't," Vash wheezed through an ominous gulp. Even in the low light, Wolfwood could see that his pupils were the size of dinner plates.

Wolfwood cupped Vash's face in his hands; he was clammy and dripping sweat like he'd run ten iles, hair plastered to his forehead. "You can. You're okay. I'm here. C'mon, now. In...out...there you go. Again, with me..."

Slowly, agonizingly, Vash calmed down, tucking into Wolfwood's offered embrace when the post-panic shivers kicked in. Softly, he broke down into tears again, and Wolfwood cupped the back of his head as gently as he would a child's.

"I ne—hever want to huh—hear a church bell again," Vash hiccupped, shuddering, his too-warm head heavy on Wolfwood's shoulder.

Wolfwood was far too rattled to ask what the fuck that meant.

Judith said that Vash's hormones could be the culprit behind the vivid nightmares. Yeah, well. That would've been all well and good and understandable if Wolfwood's own nightmares hadn't started getting more frequent around the same time.

Nightmares...the word felt like a gross understatement. The dreams felt hideously real, and they weren't just ad nauseam replays of New Moab or Conrad's lab. If only it were that merciful. He could handle those things. He had survived those things.

These dreams had never happened.

One dream involved that blue-haired, sadistic freak in some sort of metal coffin, dragging himself along with a mechanical limb, and just the sight of him in a dream had Wolfwood sweating bullets upon waking, flipping onto his stomach so he could feel to make sure his spine wasn't snapped in half.

Another time, he dreamt a horrifying scene of a naked, long-haired Knives ripping his way out of a Plant's mangled birth canal like the fucking Antichrist. Wolfwood really had no explanation for that one, but it seemed Knives-appropriate levels of both heinous and theatrical, so he just didn't question it too hard.

The worst one, one that made Wolfwood feel so nauseated upon waking that he actually had to stumble for the toilet, was a dream of Vash with his back turned to Wolfwood, sobbing in naked anguish, while Wolfwood bloodied his fists on the face of a man who looked far too much like Livio for comfort.

Those dreams couldn't be chalked up to wacky baby hormones like Vash's could. Hormones weren't contagious.

Call Wolfwood crazy, but dreams like that, dreams that felt too real to just be dreams, could mean serious business, and they didn't need to be ignored. He needed to check himself and stay on the straight and narrow, because he was pretty sure he was being given some kind of "you got a good thing going on here, now don't fuck it up" from above.

Sometimes, he dreaded even going to sleep when such disturbing visions were waiting for him, but what could he do? Not sleep? God, no. There were already several months of baby-facilitated sleep deprivation in his future. The only thing he could do was hold Vash when he needed him to, and, the harder part, let Vash hold him back.

And maybe cross himself an extra time after bedtime prayer, just in case the ghost of Millions Knives was trying to haunt his ass through his subconscious.

It helped that Vash and the babies were always still there when he woke up, snug and comfy in the blankets, unharmed by the evil cruelty of a brother and uncle that would never again be able to hurt them.

Wolfwood would've never slept another wink on this mortal plane if Vash had fallen pregnant with that lunatic still alive. Forget that schlock about respecting the dead; it didn't apply to everyone. Thank the Lord Almighty, and good fucking riddance.

I'll do my best for you, he promised the sleepily rising and falling bump of Vash's belly every morning, pressing his cheek just above the little nub of poked-out navel. It was extra calming to Wolfwood's nerves when the babies felt his touch and responded, knocking tiny elbows and knees against his face through their mother's marred, uneven skin.

Whatever the hell was going on with those dreams, they weren't reality. What mattered was that Wolfwood had been given this blessing, a family, something he'd wanted so desperately since he was a child, and he needed to love and cherish them accordingly.

After all, no one was guaranteed tomorrow.

 

⁌

 

"Ready?" Judith asked, her gloved fingers gently gripping the feeding tube right at Vash's nostril.

Vash's eyes darted back and forth on the ceiling for a moment, pupils shrunken to pinpricks and blue irises washed out underneath the infirmary's cold fluorescent lights. His breathing was quicker than normal, and he kept swallowing.

When he reached for Wolfwood's hand, Wolfwood didn't hesitate to let him take it, threading their fingers and giving Vash's hand a squeeze.

"Ready," Vash whispered, gripping the rim of the emesis basin balanced on his belly.

Slowly, carefully, Judith started to pull.

Vash locked up from head to toe like he'd been electrocuted, then forced himself to relax with visibly herculean effort, shutting his eyes and holding his breath. His lips curled back over his teeth in a deep wince. His hand shook in Wolfwood's grasp, his grip just this side of painful, and a squeaking crack sounded from the plastic basin his prosthetic fingers were tightly wrapped around.

Didn't matter. Wolfwood wasn't letting go, even if Vash crushed his hand beyond repair.

Vash suddenly let the breath he was holding out in a rough yelp, his voice strained with something close to panic, and it made Wolfwood's guts knot up in sympathy.

"I know, hon," Judith murmured with infinite softness, never letting up the tension. "You're doing so good."

Tears were reddening Vash's eyes when he opened them. Wolfwood thumbed at the corner of his eye before one could fall, and Vash warbled out a shapeless hum, staring at nothing and squeezing Wolfwood's hand in short bursts like it was a stress ball.

"Swallow for me. Good, again. Again...good job...nearly done."

Vash gave a violent twitch and a hard, water-logged cough, letting go of Wolfwood's hand to press the back of his own hand to his lips. He swallowed back a soft gag and another shallow cough. The end of the tube being pulled from his nose started coming out smeared with brownish bile, then, suddenly, Judith had the whole thing in her hands, and Vash was hacking his lungs up and spitting a glob of acid and mucus into the basin.

"Ta-da!" Judith held up the kinked-up tube with a flourish, like the conclusion of an exciting magic trick. Vash dropped his head back against the pillow, heaving for breath and looking a bit shell-shocked. "Get him a tissue, Nicholas."

As Wolfwood handed Vash the tissue so he could blow his nose, he couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief for him; the mere thought of having that much tubing all the way from his nose to his guts for six whole weeks gave him the heebie-jeebies. He didn't know how Vash had been able to stand it, much less having it pulled out like that. Eugh.

"Hurray for breathing," Vash said in hoarse celebration as he crumpled the tissue and flawlessly lobbed it into the nearby trash bin with hardly a glance. Wolfwood offered his hand; Vash gave it a clumsy high-five-fist-bump combo, dropping his hand back to his stomach afterward and closing his eyes. "Oh, my God. That sucked."

Judith chuckled, disposing of the tube in a biohazard bag and removing her gloves. "Feels much better to breathe with both nostrils, though, doesn't it?"

Vash was too busy drinking deep, luxurious breaths through his nose to answer, with the most precious little smile on his parted lips that Wolfwood had ever seen.

Judith patted and rubbed his broad shoulder, her eyes crinkling at the corners. "I'll take that as a yes." She carried the biohazard bag away to be disposed of. 

This time, Vash nodded with a liberated sigh. "So much better," he whispered.

Even though he usually kept PDA to a minimum, Wolfwood couldn't resist the urge to drop a quick kiss on Vash's forehead while Judith was turned away. To his surprise, soft blue Plant markings rippled outward from the spot he'd kissed for a split second and were gone, along with a trilling chirp that seemed to come from somewhere between Vash's neck and chest. Instantly, Vash's eyes popped open, and he touched the pit of his throat, looking up at Wolfwood with his chin pulled back in adorable bewilderment.

"That's a happy noise if I ever heard one," Judith cooed without turning around.

Vash's shoulders squared and his cheeks turned peachy pink, contrasting prettily with the saturated azure of his eyes. "I guess so."

Fuck, man. He was so cute, Wolfwood might actually perish from it.

Would the kids be just as cute? Would they inherit that magnetic quality Vash had, the sparkling eyes and infectious smile that made Wolfwood want to squeeze him close and never let him go?

...yeah, probably so.

As if the NJ tube had been the final thing holding Vash back, his appetite came back in full force, with no nausea in sight. Wolfwood had never seen him so willing to keep food in his stomach in all the years he'd known him. Gone were the days of having to bargain with him (or threaten him with a bonk on the head) to take a few bites of a sandwich or a sip of water; if it wasn't mealtime, he was munching on an apple in his hand, or crunch-slurping on one of those reconstituted strawberry yogurt and granola cups he was weirdly fond of, or savoring his thrice-weekly allowance of a beloved honey donut that the cooks in the kitchens had been more than delighted to make for him once he'd started feeling like eating them again.

Vash seemed alarmed at just how much food he was able to pack away, but Judith told him in no uncertain terms that the babies needed the extra calories and that he needed to continue eating whenever he was hungry. Which was constantly.

Watching Vash enjoy his dinner of hearty soup, made with fresh vegetables from the geodome and thomas meat and bone broth, Wolfwood had been a hair away from making the joke that, if he would've known that all it took to make Vash eat regularly was getting him pregnant, then he would've knocked him up years ago. He bit his tongue just in time, realizing just how inconsiderate it would be to say that. He could only imagine the size of the knot that Meryl would've whacked into the side of his head if she'd heard him say something so tactless.

...speaking of Meryl.

Around the time that the kids started kicking, Wolfwood noticed something: sometimes, whenever Vash perked up in the middle of whatever he was doing and placed his hands over his stomach, his face sunny with breathless awe from the baby movement he'd no doubt just felt, his smile would fade into a weird, strained expression, as if he'd just remembered something that had dealt a painful blow to his heart. Then, he would sigh. He always tried to smile again afterward, but he couldn't fool Wolfwood. The tension at the corners of his eyes and lips would still be there.

If Wolfwood had to guess, he would say that Vash was really starting to miss the girls. Even before the hormones that came along with building tiny human-Plant hybrids in a uterus, Vash had sometimes acted similarly when Meryl and Milly would be gone for long stretches of time on assignment, moody and melancholy and sighing into the far distance at least ten times a day like a maiden waiting for her drafted husband to return from war.

And, well...yeah. Maybe Wolfwood was starting to feel the girls' absence pretty hard, too. Not having them around just didn't feel right. Meryl was their headstrong spitfire, and Milly was their ray of sunshine. Without those two puzzle pieces, things weren't complete.

They'd missed over half of the pregnancy so far. Vash hadn't even been showing when Meryl and Milly last saw him, and now, here he was, looking pregnant as the day was long. Just like Vash, Meryl was definitely the type to beat herself up over such a thing, even if she couldn't control it and it wasn't her fault in the slightest.

It wasn't like she could tell Bernardelli she needed to take paternity leave.

The girls still called over the radio every few days, demanding details of how Vash was feeling and whether or not the babies were currently kicking, but it would never be as good as actually having them there. Wolfwood could see it every time Vash hung up the radio, how he would stroke his belly afterward with his eyes all wistful and his smile a poor imitation of the real deal.

Wolfwood would bet a chunk of cash that Meryl was pulling the same, mopey army wife routine that Vash currently was, and if nothing else, that thought made him smile.

At least they wouldn't have to wait much longer.

 

⁌

 

Fifteen weeks might not have seemed like a long time to anyone else, but it felt like a hundred forevers when it was the farthest into a pregnancy Vash had ever managed to get.

He had mixed feelings. Relieved happiness, of course, first and foremost. Thankfulness. Disbelief, sometimes. Love, always. But then there were the feelings that weren't so nice, like the debilitating self-doubt that plagued him to the point of tears on sleepless nights, or the crippling fear that it was all going to be ripped away from him again before his children could ever take their first breaths.

It made him feel like a bad parent already to feel such things, but...well. He was pretty sure they might be justified.

During the previous, month-long "pregnancies" he'd been through (which he hesitated to even call such), he had done everything he could possibly think of to try and give those baby Plants a fighting chance. He'd maintained a nutritious diet, drank plenty of water, and avoided any altercations as best he could—at least, after the first time when he'd been unaware. He'd moved around so carefully, as if the precious little seedlings he carried were woven of pure candy floss, one wrong move away from disintegrating if he twisted the wrong way or stood up too fast.

It had ripped a new hole in his tattered heart every single time when his efforts turned out to be just as useless as always.

So, even though the babies he was currently carrying had been perfectly healthy at every checkup so far, he still found himself falling into those old habits; standing up slowly, often walking with one hand on the nearest wall, never jerking his torso around. Judith told him, not unkindly, that while it was certainly never a bad idea to be cautious, he was being a wee bit paranoid.

He didn't care. Being more mindful than normal was a fair tradeoff for not feeling the invasive worry that came with moving too fast. This pregnancy still felt precarious and vulnerable, and so long as he wasn't hurting anything by being hypervigilant, he was going to treat it like it was.

(He was so attached, so hopelessly in love with his sweet little son and daughter, that if he ended up losing them, he feared it might actually break him beyond repair.)

Besides, with how his center of gravity was shifting as his expanding uterus took up more and more real estate in his insides, that careful movement was becoming less of a conscious precaution and more of a natural side effect of how unaccustomed he was to being heavier in a place he'd always been stick-thin. Thanks to his ile-long torso and abdominal muscles that had been lean and strong for decades upon decades, he wasn't showing anywhere near as much as a human mom probably would've been at twenty-two and a half weeks pregnant with twins. Which...he had to admit, he was thankful for. He already did double takes at himself when he passed a reflective surface. 

But, according to Wolfwood, he was starting to look a bit like he'd swallowed one of the kick balls the Hopeland kids liked to play with. Honestly, it was beginning to feel like that, too, and it was taking some adjustment. Judith said that shortness of breath was normal even with singleton pregnancies, so he tried not to worry too much when he had to sit down and chase his breath after some simple walking.

Probably a good idea to go ahead and mentally prepare himself for being even more winded as the beans kept growing, then. They weren't getting any smaller.

("Why do you still call them beans? Ain't they over a pound each now?" Wolfwood asked one day, raising one amused brow.

Vash sucked in a long, loud gasp. "I can't change their nickname this late in the game! That would be so rude!")

Ultimately, he decided that he didn't mind being out of breath or off balance, or even the fact that his gait was dangerously close to being classified as a waddle. Not when every single kick and squirm from his precious children temporarily rinsed his body of all discomfort and self-consciousness.

His itty bitty stowaways were getting so strong and lively. He would be minding his own business, when all of a sudden, shove would go a spiky heel into his stomach or a fist on the underside of his ribs, puffing a noise of surprise from his lips.

Wolfwood was just now getting to where it didn't scare the crap out of him when any variety of "the babies just kicked" noises flew from Vash's mouth out of the blue; he'd nearly hit the ceiling the first time. Poor man.

They really did just kick all the time now. Morning, noon, or night, it didn't matter. Vash swore sometimes the babies were body-slamming each other on his pelvic floor, and the imagery of that made him chuckle even as he cringed, scolding the kids for being rowdy with each other. It was like they never got tired. Well, his son did. His daughter, however, had more energy than he could ever recall having in his life.

As Vash sat underneath the shade of his favorite tree in the geodome, cross-legged with his back against the trunk and enjoying the artificial breeze, yet another shift and roll low in his middle brought a smile to his face. He cradled the underside of his bump in both hands, marveling at how heavy it already was.

"Someone can't go to sleep, huh," he whispered, stroking his thumb over the slight protrusion of either a head or a rear end.

Another grumpy little squirm, then a barrage of firm, uncomfortable kicks from higher up in his uterus, told him that the restless baby low against his hand was probably the boy, getting kicked in the side by his rambunctious sister. He seemed much more mellow than her so far.

"Is sister keeping you awake? Aw, honey." Vash's fingertips danced over the undulating spot higher up toward his ribs. "Let brother sleep, you little tornado. He's tired."

Drawn by the sound of his voice, his daughter shifted upward and seemed to calm down. Vash chuckled softly, petting the spot.

"There you go. Get comfy and take a na—ow," he hissed, straightening his back and grabbing his side, where a burst of pain had flared from the baby's foot striking a bullseye on the bottom edge of his rib. "Or not, I guess. That's fine, too. Oh, ow, oww, no, that's—not fine, please don't do that." Gently, he wedged the side of his hand in between his ribs and the baby so he could catch his breath. She must've hit a nerve; that kick had shocked all the way up into his collarbone. He was learning all sorts of interesting things about which nerves were connected where, lately.

Little spitfire, just like her...aunt? Godmother? One of those. Probably the latter, if Vash had any say.

The reflexive thought of Meryl made him go still.

The back of his head pressed to the tree, his half-lidded eyes staring off somewhere in between branches and leaves and artificial sunlight.

It was hard, being apart. He knew Meryl and Milly would've loved to be there for all the little pregnancy firsts he'd experienced lately. Maybe not the horrific sickness—thank God they'd missed that—or the weird stuff like that one random nosebleed that had nearly turned Wolfwood's hair grey on the spot, but the sweet things. The first kicks. First hiccups. The first time Wolfwood had startled the babies by blowing a raspberry on Vash's belly. The first stretch mark he'd found.

He couldn't help but think of two others that should've been here, too. Celebrating with him.

Rem...oh, Rem. She would've been over the moons to have two grandchildren to spoil. Vash's heart gave a dull, aching thump. He could see her warm brown eyes glistening with adoration and pride as clearly as if she were standing in front of him.

And...

...Vash rubbed up and down his taut stomach with a soft sigh, staring down into the bubbling stream a few feet away. His other hand wandered up to cup over his shoulder, fingertips massaging around one of the eight unique, almost surgically precise scars that fanned out like the sun's rays on either side of his spine. The memory of how easily those blades had pierced through skin and muscle made a wave of icy-cold unease wash up and down his spine. Like a superheated knife sliding through a lump of butter.

Footsteps approached, crunching in the grass, and he dropped his hand, looking up to see Brad regarding him with his hands on his hips.

"You look a bit lonely out here."

Vash forcibly wiped the memory from his mind, hoping that his smile reached his eyes. "Just needed some quiet time." Then, he winced at the abrupt twinge-squirm against his side, covering the spot with his palm. "As quiet as my time can currently be, anyway."

"Guessin' you just got jabbed, huh." Brad knelt down next to him with an old man grunt and sigh that reminded Vash far too much of how he was getting up in years. Vash reached out, pulling Brad's hand to cover the restless baby snuggled firmly into his side. Right on cue, she flung her heel upward again, and Vash had to bite back a curse. A softness stole over Brad's face that Vash didn't often see, warming his slate grey eyes, and he laughed. "Damn, she's mean. That's a nasty curb-stomp."

"She's not mean, she's just a baby." Panting, Vash tried to shoo the baby downward without much success. "She keeps kicking the underside of my rib."

Brad cringed in sympathy. "Yeesh. Bet that feels swell."

"Oh, it's...super comfortable," Vash said tightly. He pressed his fingers into his skin again, hoping to shield his sore bone so he could have a break. "She's so stubborn. She won't quit."

"Ah, gee." Brad lifted an eyebrow. "Sounds like somebody else I know. I wonder..."

"Ha ha." Vash smoothed his other hand over his bump, patting it with a tired sigh. It was starting to feel—and sound—a bit like patting a ripe melon. Ironic, since he was nowhere close to being ripe yet. "If she's this wild forever, I think I have my work cut out for me when she starts walking."

"You'll make it. You have a lot of help, ready and waiting." After a moment more, Brad leaned back, glanced at his watch, then rested his elbow on his knee. "Lover boy was looking for you a minute ago. Said he had something to give you."

Vash perked up. "Mm? What?"

"Dunno. Here, up and at 'em."

With Brad's strong, calloused hands anchoring him, Vash rose to his feet and stretched this way and that, groaning out a noise in relief when his back popped in a couple of places.

"You're starting to sound like me," Brad snorted, offering his arm for Vash to hold onto until they were back on the sidewalk and away from uneven terrain. "Crackin' like a glow stick every time you move."

Vash sighed pitifully. "I feel like you. About a thousand years old with arthritis in my knees." He grinned, jabbing Brad in the side with his elbow, and Brad scowled with no animosity, reaching over to cuff the side of Vash's head.

"I'll let that slide, since there are barely any people alive that are older than your moldy ass," he grumbled. Then, he pinned Vash with a no-nonsense look. "You been using that stuff the doc makes you use? So you ain't so sore?"

"I have, don't worry," Vash promised.

For all the good it did. He knew his scars were far beyond healing, especially now that a couple of recent stretch marks on the underside of his stomach were encroaching on scar tissue, making them ache and itch even more. But, he would keep using the scar ointment if it gave everyone else some peace of mind. At least they could feel like they were helping, even if they weren't.

...that sounded ungrateful. It did make his skin a bit softer around the scars, and the others really did mean well...

As he and Brad stepped up onto the concrete walkway, Vash was too busy habitually watching his feet for obstacles to notice that the door to the geodome had dragged open with a soft hiss of hydraulics.

 

⁌

 

As soon as Wolfwood let them into the airlock, Meryl launched herself into his arms.

He caught her with ease that made her feel light as a feather, and she wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck with an elated peal of laughter. His strong, solid arms squeezed the stuffing out of her until she squeaked in protest, grabbing his shoulders to push herself back so she could kiss him silly. He made a raspy noise of appreciation against her lips that made her stomach do flip-flops in her torso.

Meryl hummed as Nicholas broke the kiss, the feeling of his warm lips and scruffy chin and the musky, masculine scent of him leaving her giddy and sighing.

"What if I had just stepped aside and let you crash onto the floor," were the first words out of Wolfwood's mouth.

Her expression flattened. "Wow. What passion, what eloquence," she deadpanned, shoving his wicked grin away with the heel of her hand and wriggling out of his arms.

"You should write romance novels, Mr. Wolfwood," came Milly's cheerful, earnest brand of sarcasm from behind them.

As Wolfwood set Meryl down and wrestled Milly in for an affectionate noogie, Meryl could barely contain herself, bouncing on the balls of her feet. She felt like a child on Christmas Eve, vibrating with anticipation for the presents that were just out of reach.

"Does he know? Did he guess?" She demanded.

Wolfwood shook his head, gesturing for them to follow. "Not that I can tell. Let's get a move on, he's in the geodome. Told Brad to distract him for a while so he would stay put."

It almost felt like coming back to another home with the way the skeleton crew of people that roamed the ship's halls always greeted them with smiles and waves like they were old friends. Meryl supposed the ship was aptly named; she felt like she belonged here. It was a similar feeling to arriving back from college over the holidays at her parents' modest little house on the outskirts of December city. Safe, warm, happy.

As soon as the door to the geodome whooshed opened, she spotted Vash and Brad stepping up onto the sidewalk about fifty yarz away, and oh, her heart was going to fling itself out of her chest and scream.

Because Vash had a real, honest-to-goodness, adorable baby bump.

She heard Milly's breath catch behind her, felt her hand grip her shoulder and shake it back and forth.

"Look how much he's showing!" Milly whisper-screamed in sheer joy.

Wolfwood flicked the back of Meryl's head. "Run to him before you both fuckin' explode, already."

And run, they did. Meryl broke into a sprint, her heart soaring and twirling somewhere far above her like a bird in love. Milly, curse her long legs, only had to jog to keep up.

"Vash!" Meryl shrieked, unable to contain herself any longer.

"Mr. Vash!" Milly echoed.

Instantly, Vash looked up, and Meryl reveled in the sequence of shock-disbelief-delight that played across his handsome face. He sort of half-jerked forward, as if to run toward them, but Brad stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, murmuring, probably reminding him that he shouldn't run. Then, as Vash walked toward them, Brad raised his voice.

"Gently, ladies," he called to them. "Babies on board."

Meryl snorted inwardly. As if they didn't have enough sense to be careful. Did he think they were planning on body-slamming Vash to the concrete? She didn't take it personally, though, knowing that Brad was probably the closest thing to a father Vash had ever had. He was allowed to be protective.

She obediently slowed down as they got closer, even if it nearly drove her crazy. Vash's expression was pure sunshine and rain, his eyes an even brighter blue than Meryl remembered. Oh, he looked so healthy! He'd been so terribly grey last time she'd seen him, and now his complexion was radiant and rosy. She could've wept in sheer relief.

Breathless and overjoyed, Vash opened his arms, and Meryl tucked herself around his side, wrapping one arm around the firm swell of his belly and the other around his back. His prosthetic arm was solid and heavy across her shoulders, holding her close. Milly's arms encircled them both, and Meryl closed her eyes to just drink it all in, peaceful at long last.

He smelled like sweet greenery and clean laundry; Meryl nuzzled into his shirt and drank in the familiar scent like an addict taking a hit. A happy hum accompanied her sigh, her cheek squishing against his chest.

He's so warm.

Lips pressed to the top of her head once, twice, then Vash's nose snuggled into her hair, breathing shakily. She was pretty sure she heard him sniffle.

"Oh, goodness," she heard Milly coo. Meryl looked up; sure enough, Vash's expression was watery, his mouth trembling downward and his nose reddening. Milly tucked Vash's face into her shoulder, stroking his undercut. "Shhh...there, now. It's okay." She pecked a kiss on his cheek.

"Sorry," he croaked through a puff of sound that was either a laugh or a sob. "I do a lot of crying these days. I just missed you both."

Meryl rested the lightest kiss in the world on Vash's chest, right next to the grate that protected the weakened ribs over his heart. "We missed you, too."

"So much," Milly added softly.

What an understatement that was.

Knowing how sickly Vash had been during the first few weeks of pregnancy had kept them both on edge every single day, clinging to the increasingly grim health updates a sleep-deprived, stressed-out Wolfwood gave them over the radio. Meryl had often woken up in the middle of the night worrying, wondering if Vash was getting any sleep or if he was currently sick and miserable. She would've given anything to be by his side, to be able to rub his back and soothe him and love on him while he didn't feel well. She was so thankful that Wolfwood was there to take care of him, but she had wanted to be there, too, dammit.

It had comforted her, at least, to know that Vash was surrounded by an entire ship full of people who adored him.

Vash sniffled and wiped his eyes, giving Meryl one more kiss on the head and Milly an extra hug with a dazed smile. "I thought you weren't supposed to get here until next week?"

"HQ let us off early. Slow month," Meryl explained.

"Lucky us!" Milly added.

"Enough about us." Meryl wriggled away and gazed at Vash's belly. Her hands hovered around it in awe. "Can I...?"

Vash took her hands, pulling them to cup around his round stomach. The smooth, almost crystalline material of his left hand was cool on her right, contrasting with the warmth of the taut skin beneath his shirt.

If Meryl was being honest, it was a bit disorienting to see Vash's belly so big only fifteen weeks in. He already looked like he'd been pregnant for at least six months, and it hadn't even been four. Even with twins, that wasn't normal. She'd known it would be this way—Wolfwood had warned her weeks ago that Vash's pregnancy was proceeding much faster than a human's would, and that he would only have about eleven weeks left by the time the girls were able to leave for their work trip—but it still took her aback to see it in person.

It was a stark reminder of how much they had missed. Meryl was still coming to terms with the bitter regret that made her feel.

"You too, Mil," Vash beckoned with a tilt of his head and a smile. "They've been moving a lot today, you won't have to wait for long."

Sure enough, almost as soon as Milly rested her hand on his upper belly, Meryl felt a sudden shift and nudge against her left palm, like one of the babies had stretched against it.

"Oh," she gasped. Somehow, she hadn't expected it to feel so solid. There was a living being in there. Two of them, so teensy and precious. "That's so strange..."

Vash was beaming. "Isn't it wild?"

Milly's face shone with awe. "Was that the boy or the girl?"

"The boy." Vash's voice was full of loving warmth that made a lump tug in Meryl's throat.

"Hi, little man," she cooed, petting the spot with her fingertips.

Vash felt around on his belly, then moved Meryl's opposite hand further up, molding it against a slight lump in the curve. "And here's the girl. She's been a little hellion today, but she's pretending to be innocent and quiet right now."

"I wonder where she got that," Milly teased, and Brad snorted so hard that he coughed from a few feet away.

Vash tossed his arms up with a huff. "I swear, you're all conspiring against me. This is slander. Clearly, she got it from her dad."

"Nnnyope," Wolfwood enunciated very deliberately around the unlit cigarette between his teeth. "That's all you, needle noggin. I'm a model fuckin' citizen."

Vash coughed and spluttered in great offense. "For a priest, you sure do lie a lot, Father Nicholas."

Wolfwood made a face. "Yeah, imma need you to never call me that again, please."

Giggling, Meryl hugged Vash's belly close, pressing a smooch over each baby. "I love you already," she whispered for their tiny ears only, but she knew Vash heard her. His big palm cupped the back of her head, fingers reverently burying in her hair. She looked up; his eyes were warm blue skies, soft and fond and roving over her face. They stopped at her mouth, and she stood on the tips of her toes.

It was hard not to marvel at how hot Vash ran. Sometimes, you would hardly know it from touching his skin, but his lips, especially at the soft, wet line where the mucous membrane lining of the inside of his mouth began, were always insanely warm. Like pressing your mouth to a ceramic mug full of hot cocoa. Kissing him was downright relaxing. It always left Meryl smiling in contentment.

"Whew," Vash laughed when they separated, rubbing his sternum, where the curve of his stomach began. He winked. "Hard to breathe like that, and not just because a pretty lady kissed me."

Meryl flushed. "Oh, you—"

"I can imagine bending down into a whole 'nother hemisphere would make anyone a bit lightheaded," Wolfwood jeered. Milly made a suspiciously amused noise that she covered by clearing her throat.

Meryl whipped her head around to scowl at them both, opening her mouth, but interrupted herself with a surprised gasp when a sudden, weighty lurch from one of the babies jostled her hand. At the same time, Vash squeezed his eyes shut for a second of genuine pain before he plastered on a reassuring smile.

"There she goes again, taking after her dad."

"Watch it," Wolfwood muttered, but moved in to drape his arm over Vash's shoulders with telling care and a crease on his forehead.

Despite her wonder at the strength of something so small, concern sank in Meryl's chest.

"How badly did that hurt?" Milly asked softly.

"It surprised me more than anything, I think," Vash replied, which directly translated to I'm lying through my teeth, it hurt like a bitch.

Meryl rubbed up and down his side, gently soothing the sore spot with another kiss.

"It's certainly a bizarre feeling," Milly mused. "I've felt it oodles of times from my sisters and my brothers' wives when they've been expecting, but it never gets any less neat. I bet it feels weird from inside, huh."

Vash snorted with a rueful nod and eye roll.

"How do you sleep through it?" Meryl asked.

"Uh." Vash scratched the back of his head. "Very...carefully."

"Don't let him lie to you," Wolfwood drawled. "Those baby typhoons don't let him sleep."

Vash gently cuffed Wolfwood's scruffy cheek, earning a lazy grin. "Don't tattle on our children."

"Bite me."

God, Meryl loved it when they flirted.

 

⁌

 

As it turned out, Milly hadn't just brought one gift; she'd brought a veritable army's worth of baby clothes and blankets and books and toys and so many other things that it made Wolfwood's brain feel a bit concussed just looking at the baskets of stuff on the table.

"Is it too much?" Milly asked, anxiously shifting her weight when Wolfwood and Vash had sat in flabbergasted silence for probably too long. "I told my family I had a couple of friends who were expecting twins, and they all kind of...had an impromptu spring cleaning of their old baby supplies because they wanted to help. Sorry, they're—I guess my family is probably overbearing for people who don't know them, but they said they just had so many nice things they would never use anymore, and they really wanted to help."

"Oh, no, it's...it's wonderful, Milly." Black prosthetic fingers brushed a soft green baby blanket; Vash looked like he was close to crying again. "I'm just surprised at how much there is. Are you sure they meant to give us all of it?"

Milly's head bobbed emphatically. "Cross my heart and hope to die."

Each basket had a separate note of congratulations from the family member that had sent it. Vash's lip started quivering two sentences into the first one, so Wolfwood gently tucked them aside to read later, so Vash could cry his eyes out in peace.

Milly then presented them with her own gift, a massive book that probably weighed ten pounds and boasted a comically large number of baby names on the cover.

"Since everything else is basically taken care of, I wanted to get you a different sort of practical gift," Milly explained as Vash and Wolfwood pored over the book together. "Naming a baby is tough sometimes, so I figured with two of them to name, you might could use some extra help."

"Could we ever," Wolfwood breathed, flipping the page. "We ain't even thought about it yet." Vash smothered a guilty cough, and Wolfwood fixed him with a suspicious side-eye. "Well. I haven't, but needle noggin over here's apparently been keepin' secrets."

"I haven't, I swear," Vash protested with the high-low cadence he often used when bald-faced lying. Meryl hid a chuckle in her jacket.

"Mhm." Wolfwood closed the book with a soft thump. "Well, you can write them down with the others, cause we got some serious work to do."

Three sets of sparkling eyes looked back at him, and he couldn't help but smile inwardly.

It was good to be back together.

The days slipped by in an easy routine. During the day, Meryl shadowed Brad as he showed her around the ship for her article, and Luida taught Milly how to care for plants in the geodome, since she'd never gotten much opportunity to learn firsthand. Vash mostly napped and snacked and worked his way through the collection of old world novels in storage, as he was quickly becoming too pregnant to do much else. Wolfwood stayed busy here and there, either doing miscellaneous handyman work or appeasing his nicotine cravings outside or giving the moms of the ship a break by watching their kids for a few hours. He figured it was good practice for parenthood, and the little shits really were adorable. It made him miss the Hopeland kids.

Once Vash had the babies, they would have to go back for a visit. Melanie was going to lose her everloving shit.

Every night, the four of them met up in the lounge down the hall from Vash's quarters that they had basically claimed as their living room, passing the baby names book around over their evening meal with Meryl keeping track of their favorites in a notebook.

"Huh. This is kinda hard." Vash stuck Meryl's pencil between his nose and pooched-out upper lip; she snatched it away with an eye roll. "You weren't kidding, Milly."

Lifting her after-dinner cup of tea to her lips, Milly nodded with a grave frown. "My middle big sister had the darndest time finding a name she liked for her baby boy. And you have to find two! Bless you."

"Four, if they want middle names, too," Meryl reminded. Milly hummed in agreement into her tea.

Vash got a weird look on his face for a few seconds, but then, it was gone. "That's true," he admitted softly. He braced his forearms on the back of the chair and leaned back in that certain way he did when one of the kids was crowding his diaphragm. "What are your middle names? I've never even asked."

"Eleanor," Milly sang with a cheery raise of her hand. "My full name is Millicent Eleanor Thompson. I was named after my great-great aunt on my mother's side!"

A frilly name for a burly girl. Somehow, it wasn't ill-fitting.

Meryl crossed her arms and slid down in her chair with a cute little frown, planting her knees against the edge of the table. "Mine is stupid. Pass."

Now that grabbed Wolfwood's attention.

"Oh, c'mon, doll," Vash whined. "I would tell you mine if I had one."

Wolfwood sneered, switching his lollipop to the opposite cheek. "You do, Archibald."

Vash covered his mouth and whipped his head away, but not before a snort of laughter escaped.

"Never gonna let that go, are you," Meryl muttered.

Wolfwood gave her a toothy grin. "No, ma'am. Spill. I'll tell if you do."

"You mean the D actually stands for something, after all?" She said in mock surprise. Wolfwood pretended not to hear her, pulling the lollipop out to inspect it.

Vash pouted. "It can't be that bad, Meryl."

Meryl harrumphed. "Easy for you to say, Mister Stampede. You were spared the indignity of being saddled with a middle name you hate."

"You don't have to tell us," Milly said with a consoling, motherly pat to Meryl's head that was downright hilarious considering Meryl was at least five years older than her. "I wouldn't want you to be embarrassed."

When Wolfwood opened his mouth to say the exact opposite, Milly kicked his shin underneath the table. He narrowed his eyes at her, but she didn't so much as glance at him, that nonchalant smile firmly in place. She was young and naive, for sure, but underneath the empty-headed country girl façade she liked to play up, Milly was sharp as a tack.

Just like her uncle had been. God rest his crotchety, alcoholic soul.

"Oh...fine." Meryl's shoulders squared, her nose scrunching. Her voice dwindled to a clenched-teethed mumble. "It's...Priscilla."

It was silent for a beat, only broken by Wolfwood crunching down on the lollipop to keep his lips from twisting in glee.

"...so all the times I've called you 'miss priss' were more accurate than I—"

Meryl lurched up, and Vash pulled her back down by her arm with tranquil ease that made Wolfwood realize anew what an amazing mom he was going to be.

"I'm going to shove my entire foot up your ass, Nicholas Dickhead—"

"Hey! No cursing in front of the babies!" Milly cried.

"Oh, they can't understand," Meryl said crossly.

"I think it's a really nice middle name. Kinda elegant sounding, y'know? Meryl Priscilla Stryfe...it's distinguished." Vash sounded breathless. He sounded like that a lot these days, and it already made Wolfwood antsy. "And at least you have one. Not having one is awkward, makes people ask questions."

Meryl must've known Vash was talking about himself, because she softened and patted his arm, and the way he smiled back at her made Wolfwood's heart flutter around in his ribcage.

"Now. My end of the bargain is fulfilled. Pay up," Meryl needled, jabbing Wolfwood in the ribs. Gently, he slapped at her hand.

"Alright, alright...keep your shirt on, shorty. I don't know my middle name."

"You have ammo on me for the rest of my life, so now you have t—" Meryl stopped. "Wait, really? You're kidding." She lifted a suspicious brow. "What, so you know your middle initial, but not what it stands for? That's likely."

The incredulity in all three pairs of eyes made Wolfwood want to crawl under the table to escape.

He shifted in his chair, crossing his arms and mumbling, "It was the only thing written on my shirt when I got dropped off at Hopeland."

Meryl's face fell; she was probably realizing that she'd just stuck her foot in her pretty mouth for the zillionth time in her life. Milly made a soft, sad noise, her eyes shimmering with genuine sympathy. Vash looked like he was seconds away from blubbering into the neck of his shirt.

Christ. You'd think he was a puppy with a broken leg.

"I didn't mean what I said," Vash said in a small voice, but Wolfwood was already shrugging him off before he was even finished.

"S'fine. It is a bit awkward, you were right. That's why I kept the initial. I've always wondered what it's supposed to stand for, but meh. I guess I'd rather not know, anyway. Whatever it is, it wouldn't roll off the tongue as good."

Besides the fact that it was given to him by a woman who didn't love him enough to actually raise him.

"I think Nicholas D. Wolfwood is a fine, sensible name," Milly declared, flipping to a page in the book and holding it up to give it a triumphant point. "Nicholas means 'victorious,' after all. Isn't that lovely?"

Wolfwood stared through the caramel brown liquid in her tea cup. A voice from the past echoed through his brain, silky and sinister as the Serpent of Old.

Congratulations, S+ boy...you've won favor...

His throat felt suddenly parched, so he sipped his water.

"Yeah. Guess you're right."

While Milly and Vash chatted about various name meanings, Meryl slid from her chair to loop her arms around Wolfwood's neck from behind, nestling her pert little nose into the crook between his neck and shoulder. Damn her and her scarily shrewd reporter instincts, she always knew when something was bothering him. Or anyone, for that matter.

He couldn't bring himself to say anything, but he did reach up to hold her wrists with a careful grip. They felt terribly fragile under his palms, the skin buttery soft on his own calloused fingertips. He could feel the muted tap of her pulse through her veins. An intrusive thought of how easily her wrists would snap if he just clenched his fists bullied its way through his mind, there and gone again too quickly for him to catch it and smother it.

He had to swallow a bit harder to clear the lump in his throat.

During those two years of constant searching for Vash, learning how to let Meryl show him she loved him had been an uphill battle. Touch meant manacles and table straps and unknown injections and a kaleidoscope of agony searing behind his eyelids. It had taken a long time for it to mean affection and kindness and the heart-deep warmth that came from simply holding Meryl's, and later Vash's, hands.

They really did have the patience of saints.

He had to remember that he had them to hold onto now. And that, soon, he would have children to hold. It made him stop, several times a day, and try his best to commit everything to memory, every single little detail about the moment he was in, whether it was the girls feeling the babies move or Vash softly humming them a lullaby before bed. The pregnancy was so short in the grand scheme of things, and Wolfwood didn't want to forget a single second of it. After all, it might not...

...well.

It might be the only one.

Wolfwood knew it was presumptuous to even think of wanting more children when these two weren't even here yet, so he tried to set aside his yearning for a house full of dark-haired kids with Vash's eyes and smile. Vash was the one popping them out; he might decide it wasn't worth all the morning sickness and body aches and invasive medical intervention once he'd been through childbirth two times over.

...or, rather, for the sixth and seventh.

Wolfwood knew those other five babies weighed heavy on Vash's mind these days. Sometimes in the morning, when Vash was unaware Wolfwood was awake and watching him, he would rub his belly with tenderness and grief, hollow eyes staring off into space, his face veiled with that rare, bottomless fatigue that made Wolfwood's chest feel empty. Sometimes he would cry, silent tears rolling down his face, never making a sound.

Wolfwood never interrupted him. He'd only been in Vash's life for a fraction of a fraction of the time he'd been alive; what right did Wolfwood have to dictate the pace at which he could grieve?

Honestly, Wolfwood wouldn't blame Vash if he never wanted to get pregnant again once the kids were born. Every past pregnancy had put him through things that would probably drive a lesser person to a psychotic break, and the current one hadn't exactly been a fucking cakewalk.

So, Wolfwood just did his absolute best to engrave every moment on his heart as they came, whether precious or painful.

 

⁌

 

With every passing day, their babies looked more and more like actual babies on the ultrasound monitor, growing at a ridiculous pace that had Vash sore and increasingly unwieldy on his feet. They would wriggle and yawn and suck their thumbs and snuggle against one other like two chubby little peas in a pod, and Wolfwood could hardly fathom how much he already loved them. They weren't even here yet; how was his heart going to take it when they got here? He was doomed, and so were Meryl and Milly, who both bawled into their handkerchiefs through the first ultrasound they got to attend like two old biddies at a wedding.

The thing he didn't like so much was how much pain the sprouts were starting to cause their mama.

As week nineteen came and went, an uneasy pity for Vash took up residence in Wolfwood's heart. Even with Vash's unnaturally long torso, the kids were really beginning to squish his lungs. He had to sit down, arch his back, and lean backward on his hands to make enough space to be able to breathe normally. It was still normal, according to Judy; apparently, being pregnant with multiples made the uterus much taller in the abdominal cavity than singletons.

That tracked. Vash's whole belly from his sternum to his pubic bone was becoming one single curve. And it was hurting him badly.

Or, rather, it was heaping additional pain on top of the chronic pain he'd dealt with for the better part of a century and a half.

Most of the time, Vash put on a brave face. Especially around the girls, or Brad and Luida. He didn't want to worry them, he confessed to Wolfwood in a fleeting moment of honesty. Meryl has enough on her plate working on her article without worrying about me. Milly is really enjoying her gardening lessons, I don't want to be a downer. Luida gets bad migraines when she's stressed out, I don't want to be a burden on her. Brad has to watch his blood pressure now, I'm not contributing to that if I can help it.

Excuse after excuse. As if they all weren't going to worry anyway.

But at night, the walls crumbled down and the pain and stress leaked out. One way or another.

So many body modifications and years of being tortured and treated like a lab rat had made Wolfwood's sleep cycles woefully light. Unless he was deathly ill or so badly injured that he couldn't maintain consciousness, he always twitched awake numerous times each night with his heart thudding abnormally fast, even if there was seemingly no reason. It was just how he was. Sucked, but that was life.

Therefore, he sometimes bore witness to things that a normal expectant father would've likely snored right through.

As he popped awake one such night, the first thing he saw was Vash sitting up in bed, hunched over. At first, Wolfwood wondered if he was just dreaming, but after tightly blinking his burning lids a few times and hearing the muted gulp and resulting quivering puff of breath that meant Vash was trying to hold down a sob, Wolfwood decided he was definitely awake.

He pushed himself up on one elbow, the sheets slipping down his torso. "Blondie?" He whispered.

Startled, Vash glanced over his shoulder. Sure enough, tear tracks glistened on his face in the light from the window.

"Oh, I didn't wake you, did I?" He whispered back in dismay, wiping his face. It sounded like he had a cold. He'd been crying for a good while, then, too distracted to even notice that Wolfwood had been awake and watching him.

"Nah. You know how it is." Wolfwood drew in a deep breath through his nose as he sat up, rubbing the back of his neck. "The kids okay?"

Vash turned away and sniffled. "They're fine."

Wolfwood watched him carefully. "And their mama?"

Dead silence replaced the I'm fine Vash normally would've given. Wolfwood's heart skipped a flopping, uncomfortable beat. When Vash finally opened his mouth, Wolfwood cut him off.

"If you tell me you're fine, so help me God, I will wake shortcake up and sic her on you."

Vash hung his head, rubbing his eyes and sniffling again. Such a shaky little sound. "It's nothing you can fix."

"I'll be the judge of that," Wolfwood grumbled, grasping Vash's right shoulder so he could shift closer.

Quicker than lightning, Vash twisted away from him and sucked in a wet, crackling gasp as he knocked Wolfwood's arm away with the heel of his hand.

Wolfwood's stomach plummeted through the floor. His hand hovered in midair, his wrist smarting from where the side of Vash's hand had collided with it. "What's—"

"I'm sorry!" Vash warbled at the same time. His shoulders were held painfully rigid, quivering like Wolfwood had slapped the thick, jagged keloid that wrapped over his shoulder as hard as he could.

...his scars. Oh, Lord.

Wolfwood's neck heated up with prickling shame when he remembered that they were on the cusp of a bad sandstorm right now. He could already hear it against the window, particles spackling the thick synthetic glass and the metal hull of the ship. Squall lines approaching meant barometric pressure bottoming out, and that meant...

His hand slowly drifted down to his lap. Vash hadn't been lying. There truly was nothing he could do.

As lightly as he could, he touched a scar-free patch of Vash's forearm. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"You would never," was the choked reply.

Wolfwood sighed. "You should've woken me up. You shouldn't be alone when you're hurtin' this bad, blondie."

Vash's throat worked with a low noise like an audible wince. "I know. I'm sorry. I just...I hate worrying you all so much. It's all I do anymore."

Wolfwood had to bite back a snappy retort about self-deprecation.

"Would a hot bath help? Like it used to?" He tried instead.

"It's the only thing that might." Vash dragged his hand down his face, then it fell to his lap. "I would have to take enough morphine to knock out a grand worm to even touch the pain, and I can't do that right now." He looked down at his belly with raw weariness.

Well, that did it. The fact that it was ass o' clock in the morning didn't matter.

Wolfwood rubbed the sleep from his eyes, slithered out of bed, and offered Vash his hand, ignoring his throbbing wrist. "C'mere."

Painfully slowly, Vash pushed himself to the edge of the bed. With Wolfwood's help, he lugged himself to his feet, holding his belly up by the underside with his hand once he was upright. Even in the low light, Wolfwood could see how pale he was, a sheen of moisture on his brow. That was a bad sign. It took debilitating pain to make Vash sweat.

"Need your arm?"

"No. Too heavy." Vash swallowed hard and swayed forward slightly. Wolfwood steadied him with feather-light touches on his elbow and shoulder. "If you could just...help me to the...big bathtub...?"

He was already winded, and all he'd done was stand up.

Wolfwood let Vash hang onto his arm as they inched out of the room and down the hall to the larger, communal bathroom. Throaty little gasps and whines leaked from Vash with every step they took, and that put Wolfwood even more on edge. Vash usually tried to chew down on any noise that would betray pain.

After locking them in the bathroom and depositing Vash on the closed toilet seat, Wolfwood got a hot bath running in the tub. Vash peeled his shirt off, stopping to cringe and pant every few inches like the fabric was a razor scraping underneath his skin. Once he was shirtless, he leaned back, holding his breath in increments and hanging his head.

Wolfwood gave the hand clutching Vash's belly a wary look. "You good?"

Vash nodded without opening his eyes. "Not that kind of pain," he breathed, reading Wolfwood's mind with frightening ease. "It's just heavy. Tugging on my scars." He angled his head down at his right side. "This one, mostly."

The largest one.

Wolfwood swished his hand in the rising water, making sure it wasn't going to be too hot. Pregnant moms weren't supposed to overheat in the bath, some remote corner of his brain that sounded a lot like Judith whispered.

"How'd you get that scar, anyway?" The words sailed straight through the mental filter that usually caught such insensitive questions, and he inwardly punched himself in the head. Said filter tended not to work late at night.

"It would just make you mad," Vash mumbled.

Wolfwood pursed his lips to hold in any more nonsense. He rose to his feet and dried his hand on his pajama pants as he approached Vash. Under the light, the dark smudges around those droopy eyes were starkly evident.

He offered his hand once more, and Vash pulled himself up.

His already pale face blanched deathly white, and with an abrupt, guttural little noise in his throat like he'd narrowly squeezed down a shout, he let go of Wolfwood and jerked over nearly double, his face twisting in shock as he dug his fingers into his belly, low on his side.

Fuck. Wolfwood took a silent breath once, twice to calm his suddenly galloping heartbeat, unclenching his jaw. His hands hovered around Vash. "Ligaments again?"

Vash slowly straightened up and smothered his face in Wolfwood's shoulder, nodding. Too honest. He was really hurting.

Unsure if he could touch anywhere on Vash's back without irritating a scar, Wolfwood just cupped the back of his head, running his thumb over the coarser black hair at the base of his skull. Vash's breathing stopped and started unevenly. He was trying not to cry again.

Wolfwood squeezed his eyes shut. Help him.

When Vash didn't move for a good two minutes, Wolfwood nudged at his cheek with his nose.

"C'mon, needle noggin. You'll feel a little better if you get in the water."

A weak scoff whuffed against Wolfwood's shirt, as if Vash wasn't optimistic, but he allowed himself to be led to the tub. Remembering how the brush of fabric had seemed painful for him, Wolfwood knelt down and got Vash's pants and underwear off quickly and gently, and Vash held onto his shoulder while he stepped out of the leg holes.

Once Vash was settled in the bath, stretched out as much as he could be in a tub that wasn't quite built for someone his size and collarbone-deep in steaming water, he did seem to relax a little bit. Wolfwood made himself comfortable beside the tub, resting his elbows on the edge and crossing his arms.

"You can go on back to sleep," Vash mumbled, his cheek squished against the side of the tub and his eyes half-lidded and grey. "I'll be okay."

Wolfwood barely resisted looking at him like he was stupid. "And leave you in here to be miserable all by yourself? Yeah, no. Not happening."

But Vash wasn't listening. His eyes had widened, fixed on Wolfwood's wrist, where violet and burgundy were beginning to bloom under his skin. Fuck, he hadn't even noticed it, having forgotten about it in favor of getting Vash in the tub.

"Oh, oh, Nick," Vash wobbled out, reaching up a dripping hand to touch Wolfwood's forearm. To Wolfwood's shock, tears dribbled down his scrunched-up face into the water, sobs breaking up his words. "Your poor hand, I hurt your hand, I'm so, so sorry, I should've been more careful—"

"Vash," Wolfwood murmured through a soft sigh, cupping the back of Vash's head, burying his fingers in sweaty hair. "It was an accident. It's just bruised. It'll heal in a couple days."

Vash swallowed down his sobs and took a few labored breaths, massaging his side. Or, rather, massaging around the scar on his side. Then, he closed his eyes and whimpered. "I should've been quieter. I'm sorry for waking you."

"You didn't wake me. My idiot-in-pain-and-trying-to-hide-it senses just went off in my sleep." In contrast with the blunt words, Wolfwood's fingers were gentle, stroking through Vash's hair. 

"It really does hurt," Vash whispered, so weary.

Wolfwood's forehead pinched, worry pounding behind his eyes.

He leaned over to kiss Vash's forehead. Tiredness was the only reason he didn't jump in surprise at the resulting half-second of hazy, rippling bioluminescence across Vash's skin. He scrubbed his eyes, trying to recall the color, but his brain was just too groggy.

It hadn't quite looked blue, but it hadn't been white, either.

After an hour of soaking in the tub and quietly sniffling through most of it, Wolfwood helped Vash shuffle back to bed, but he knew for a fact when he woke up the next morning that Vash hadn't slept a single wink. Permanent bags shadowed his eyes, and they stayed there for days.

His pain levels didn't decrease with the waning sandstorm like they'd hoped. If anything, they slowly increased. His prosthetic rested uselessly on the table in his bedroom; without a neural connection, the fingers remained curled and frozen like a dead spider.

The babies are just getting big, Vash protested when his trio of bodyguards hovered over his every gasp and whine. He definitely wasn't wrong. At just twenty-two weeks, his fundal height was measuring eleven whole weeks ahead of that, putting him at nearly thirty-three weeks pregnant if he'd been human. Every time the babies moved, they tugged on every scar in their vicinity, and Vash would jerk and grunt and hold his breath like he'd been shot in the stomach.

Wolfwood watched as Judith handed Vash a towel for his gel-smeared belly after his latest ultrasound. Between the tight, inflamed scars and the collection of bruise-like stretch marks on the small sections of skin that had been unblemished before, his whole stomach was a mottled mess of red and purple.

It hurt just looking at it. Wolfwood couldn't even fathom the level of pain he was in.

"You should be resting as much as possible," Judith was telling him. Wolfwood tore his eyes from Vash's stomach and tuned in, because God knew needle noggin would forget whatever she was saying in five minutes. "You're not quite to the 'these babies could come any day now' stage, but in a couple of weeks, you could be."

"Thank God," was all Vash said, his tone soft and flat.

Slowly, Wolfwood looked over at the girls. They looked just as alarmed as he felt, Meryl's mouth parted in shock and Milly's eyes huge.

That was the closest thing to a genuine complaint Vash had uttered during the entire pregnancy. Even when he'd been so nauseated he could barely move without upsetting his stomach, he had still managed to smile up at Wolfwood from the bathroom floor.

"Something isn't right."

Meryl said exactly what they were all thinking a few minutes later, staring into her coffee cup as they sat in the lounge. Vash had been too exhausted to move from bed after the ultrasound, so Judith had ordered him to stay put and take a nap. Wolfwood was still questioning his decision to leave Vash alone, but he was in the infirmary; Judith would keep both of those sharp eyes of hers on him.

Milly's long fingers tangled together on the table top, her eyes forlornly pointed down at them, hooded by sandy lashes. "I don't like it," she murmured. "He's not himself."

Wolfwood squeezed his own clasped hands a bit harder. "I haven't seen him act like this since..." he made eye contact with Meryl; ever quick on the uptake, she gave him the barest nod.

"One of us needs to be with him at all times, just to be safe." Meryl chewed her lip, sighing. "Twins can come really early."

The last part was mumbled to herself under her breath, as if she'd just voiced her thoughts without thinking, but like the paranoid sack of meat it was, Wolfwood's brain wrapped both arms and legs around that thought and wouldn't let go.

His stomach took an abrupt nose-dive and his pulse whooshed in his ears. They would be so premature if they were born now. Their poor little lungs would struggle so much.

He didn't want his babies to struggle.

His expression must've truly been something else, because Milly hastily said, "maybe that won't happen, ma'am" and gave Meryl a scathing, incredulous look.

But the damage was done. The idea was planted, snaking around Wolfwood's trembling heart like barbed wire. He didn't even hear Meryl's nervous backtracking.

He rested his forehead in his hand with a taut sigh through his teeth, nicotine cravings crawling up his throat and squeezing at his chest.

He's been through too damn much, Lord. Please, don't take it all away now.

 

⁌

 

As soon as Wolfwood's eyes peeled open the next morning, he knew something was off.

The bed was a little too cool. There was a stillness in the air that didn't register to his brain at first, but as his mind caught up with his body, he realized that he couldn't hear Vash breathing.

Like a shot, he lurched up, his heart thrashing in his chest and his skin smarting with adrenaline. For an irrational half-second born of many years traveling with a wanted gunman, his brain dumped images on him of a dull-eyed, motionless corpse, curled around a pregnant belly that no longer moved.

But, no. It wasn't anything that drastic. Vash just wasn't in bed. It looked like he hadn't been in a while, judging from the way the sheets had been smoothed out on his side and the lack of body heat when Wolfwood laid his palm on the mattress.

A deep breath escaped him as he flopped back down, pushing his hair back from his forehead. Fuck's sake, needle noggin.

Unnerved, he called Vash through the radio in his earring, and tried and failed to calm down when Vash simply said he was in the geodome because he'd needed some fresh air. He didn't sound like he was lying, but...Vash could be scarily good at lying when he wanted to be.

Wolfwood grabbed the girls and went to check on him, anyway.

Vash was ashen and stiff and obviously not feeling well, propped against the big tree by the stream, but he lifted his gaze when they approached, summoning a fragile smile with visible effort.

"Morning," he whispered.

Meryl knelt next to him in the grass, brushing his hair off of his forehead to kiss it. "How do you feel?"

Vash just closed his eyes and made a wiggly hand gesture. Wolfwood exchanged a lightning-fast glance with Meryl.

"Would you mind if I kept you company for a little while?" Milly asked as she plopped down next to Vash without waiting for an answer. "It's so lovely out here, I hate to not be out here enjoying it."

Vash's eyes were tight around the corners, but they still softened. They always did for Milly. "I'd love that."

Meryl dragged Wolfwood out of earshot. She had that look in her eyes; the snappy one she disguised crippling worry with.

"What do we do?" She asked, tossing her hands up and letting them fall back against her thighs with a soft smack. "There's clearly something wrong with him."

Wolfwood jerked his shoulders up, helpless. "What do you want me to do?"

"I don't know!" Meryl hissed back. "Something! He's hurting!"

"It ain't like we can yell his pain away," Wolfwood bit out. "Fuck's sake, woman, I'm a priest, not a miracle worker."

The muscle in Meryl's jaw ticked. Her eyes glimmered, but she quickly scrubbed them. "I know," she whispered, her voice high and tight.

"Ah, hell," Wolfwood said under his breath, sighing as he folded his arms around her.

"I just want to help him," the sad, muffled words warmed Wolfwood's shirt. Her arms tightened around his waist. "He's in so much pain, Nick."

He pressed the thin line of his mouth on top of her head, at a loss. "I know, babe."

Judith had warned them months ago that this pregnancy was going to get exponentially more difficult and high-risk the closer Vash got to delivery. Wolfwood had had ample time to get himself acclimated to the idea, but Meryl and Milly hadn't. No wonder Meryl was about to jump out of her shorts. Up until a few days ago, Vash had been acting pretty normal.

He heard a wet excuse for a giggle.

"Maybe I should cry on your chest more often if it'll make you call me 'babe'."

He pushed Meryl back and held her at arm's length like she was contaminated. "Don't count on it."

She halfheartedly stuck her tongue out at him, but the effect was destroyed by her sniffling nose and flooded eyes. "Jerk."

Luida could probably tell that Wolfwood and Meryl were antsy and needed distraction, because she enlisted them to help her in the garden. So, Wolfwood spent the better part of the morning tilling soil while Meryl followed along behind him with watering can in hand and dropped wheat seeds in the freshly-turned dirt. Milly stayed on Vash duty, keeping him company while he napped in the shade of the splaying branches.

He seemed to favor that particular spot. Wolfwood often wondered if there had been a similar tree on Ship Five, but asking about that sort of thing usually led to some childhood anecdote about Knives, and his blood pressure still couldn't quite withstand hearing Vash talk fondly about someone who had so mercilessly abused him and had the gall to call it love.

As Wolfwood parked the tiller at the end of the row and pulled his shirt up to wipe his neck, movement caught his eye. He glanced over to see Milly standing beside Vash with her hands fluttering, protesting as Vash grabbed for her hand and struggled to pull himself up to his feet. Something about the way he was moving looked jerky and abnormal. Wolfwood's brow furrowed, and he started toward them.

Snippets of Milly's fretting reached his ears as he drew nearer.

"...on't really think you should stand if you're feeling unwell, you should—"

Vash was turned toward Wolfwood, giving him a front-row seat to the frightening way Vash's eyes rolled back in his head.

Wolfwood broke into a run.

"Don't let him fall!" He roared, but Milly was already way ahead of him, catching Vash and carefully maneuvering him into her arms so she could lower him to the ground.

Meryl's short gait pounded the ground behind Wolfwood, and Luida's longer stride followed further behind.

"I'm so glad I saw that coming," he heard Milly warble out as they approached. Her gaze whipped up to them, bewildered and frantic. "He's burning up!"

Heart in his throat, Wolfwood's knees hit the ground beside Vash, hands passing over his shoulders. Vash's neck was cradled in Milly's elbow, his face tipped toward the sky and his mouth hanging open like it only did in deep sleep. He was out cold, and soaked in sweat. As Milly had said, his skin was worryingly hot, even for him; Wolfwood could literally see the steam drifting off his forehead as his sweat evaporated from his sweltering body heat.

"Turn him onto his left side," Luida ordered as she knelt down.

With Milly's help and Meryl hovering over them wringing her hands, Wolfwood moved Vash onto his left side and pushed his left leg up toward his belly, bent at the knee. As Milly arranged his head in her lap, he didn't move a muscle.

"That'll increase blood flow to his brain. Or...the placenta, maybe. I-I can't remember." Wolfwood looked at Milly. "What was he saying before he passed out?"

"He didn't say anything." Milly's freckles stood out against her pale face. "He wouldn't listen to a word I said; I think he was already addle-headed and halfway to fainting before he even pulled himself up."

Luida patted Vash's cheek. Wolfwood didn't miss the way her hand instantly jerked away, like she'd touched a hot stove top. "Vash. Can you hear us?" She gently pulled one of his eyelids up with her thumb and tilted his head toward the synthetic sunlight beaming from the ceiling. Only a sliver of blue was visible.

Unperturbed as always by the heat, Meryl cradled the side of Vash's face in her hand, stroking his cheek with the other. "I think he's coming around...can you hear me, sweetheart?"

Vash's eyelids fluttered but didn't open, his damp forehead wrinkling. A sticky little noise bubbled from his throat. "Yeah, I gotchya," he slurred, sounding drunk. His flesh hand lifted a few inches and fell, fingertips quivering violently. "M'right here, Rem."

Meryl's lips turned paper white.

"Oh, my God," Milly gasped. Her fingers were pressed underneath Vash's jaw.

When Wolfwood replaced her fingers with his own and felt Vash's pulse thundering at a speed that surely would've killed a human on the spot, he swore under his breath and scooped Vash out of her arms.

"We gotta get him to the infir—oh, shit—"

Before he could stand, he had to hastily lean Vash over with his arm around his chest and one hand holding his forehead so he wouldn't vomit on himself. His own heart rate skyrocketed as Vash coughed and spit on the ground, glazed eyes looking somewhere far away.

Plant markings suddenly pulsed in a ring down his throat, and they were a muddy, brownish red.

The hair on the back of Wolfwood's neck stood straight up.

Luida swiftly rose to her feet. "We need to make haste. I'll page Judith on the way and let her know to be ready."

Wolfwood tucked Vash close and shoved himself to his feet, whispering a cracked prayer and breaking into as fast of a run as he dared, with Meryl and Milly flanking him and Luida close behind.

Please, please, please, his heart screamed.

As they crashed into the infirmary, Judith met them at the door, leading them to the station Vash usually occupied.

"What the hell happened?" She demanded.

Milly shakily began to tell her. Wolfwood, whose hands were numb and refusing to gripping correctly as they arranged Vash's limp form on his left side in the bed, tried to help explain, but before he could form coherent words, Vash tensed up and made a pitiful noise that yanked on Wolfwood's heart so hard, he thought it might rip straight up through his chest and out his mouth.

"Hey, hey, honey," Judith soothed as Vash reached out a clammy hand, briefly catching it and squeezing it before lifting the neck of his shirt so she could stick those heart monitor pad things to his chest. "You're okay. You with us?"

Vash grunted without opening his mouth, his breathing short and clipped through his nose. Wolfwood saw his throat ripple; a thin stream of froth seeped from the corner of his lips. "S-side hurts," he crackled out with a shallow cough.

Judith pulled his shirt up, her tube of conductive gel at the ready, but with one look at the strangely engorged scar and darkened veins on his right side, Wolfwood instantly knew that something was wrong, wrong, wrong, and so did Judith; her eyes hardened with that clinical look, and she dropped the tube to the bed and looked at Luida.

"Dr. Leitner, I need you to wake the surgical staff out of cold sleep ASAP. It's an emergency."

Luida, as maddeningly calm as ever, nodded. "Give me ten minutes, tops," she said on her way out.

Wolfwood's head whirled like he'd been shaken. Shit, wait, hold on. Surgery? This was happening way too fast. What was happening? Why was it happening?

He suddenly realized that Judith was herding him and the girls toward the door, too.

"Wait, what the fuck—no!" He dug his heel into the floor, pushing back against Judith's surprisingly strong shoving. "What's going on?!"

"I can't afford to stand here and waste time explaining what I think it may be, I need to suit up and sterilize the instruments and be ready for the rest of the team as soon as they arrive. Get out," Judith snapped.

Wolfwood's neck flashed hot-cold. "You old fucking hag—"

Meryl yanked on his arm, hard. Harder than he would've though her capable of. "We need to go," she barked. "We're in her way. They're in good hands."

No, this...this...

The situation was spiraling so far out of his hands, too far, and fear had made his lungs go frigid. His vision was greying at the edges. For a moment, he was afraid he might pass out.

"She'll take good care of them, Mr. Wolfwood." Milly sounded far away.

Just before the girls dragged him out of the room, he stopped, one more time.

"Is it...the babies?" Wolfwood demanded around the live coal in his throat.

Judith shook her head, right behind them and rushing them none too gently.

"Vash," was all she said.

Wolfwood wanted to scream.

That's no better.

But the infirmary door had already shut and locked in his face.

 

⁌

 

The way Wolfwood had stood at that infirmary door after it had shut, ashen-faced and tensely silent, had pinched and twisted something deep in Meryl's heart, hurting even through her own stifling anxiety. It took her a couple of tries, but eventually, he followed her when she pulled on his arm.

"Let's go sit," she whispered, gently lacing her fingers between his. Placating.

Wolfwood likely would've bowed up and told her to fuck off if he hadn't been so lost inside his own head. His eyes were vacant, like he was having trouble catching up. Thankfully, they cleared a bit once they reached the waiting room down the hall. Milly, ever the caretaker, started a pot of coffee, and the chugging whirr of the old coffee maker became the only noise in the room.

With that, they settled in to wait. Wolfwood sat down, buried his face in his hands, and didn't move. Meryl chose the chair next to his, scooting it a bit closer. Milly leaned her hip against the countertop, watching the coffee pot fill up and picking at her cuticles with shaking fingers.

A few minutes after arriving in the waiting room, they heard the elevator down the hall ding, then the hustle of many footsteps approaching. Five or six people flew by the door, too fast to make out any details, and the commotion receded down the hallway toward the infirmary.

The surgical team, Meryl thought to herself, gripping the handle of her coffee mug a bit harder. She took deep breaths as silently as she could, in through her nose and out through her mouth, and placed her hand on Wolfwood's stooped back. He was hunched over in the chair next to her, rubbing his temples. She thumbed across the bumps and ridges of his spine, noticing as she always did how abnormal it felt.

Every time she went to break the silence, it was like her larynx had turned to stone, rigid and unmoving. The air in the room felt too stifling to speak through, and it would feel like that until they knew Vash was going to be alright.

Brad and Luida joined their anxious vigil a few minutes later, and Meryl had never seen stern, rough Brad look so sick with worry. There was a grim set to Luida's lips.

An hour passed.

Vash will be fine, Meryl told herself over and over, forcing herself to recall just how insane Vash's Independent healing abilities were. She had seen him pull through things that should've been impossible. He had survived an explosion that had leveled an entire city. Whatever was wrong, it wasn't enough to...to...

Her throat felt so dry.

Worry for the babies rustled at the corners of her mind, but she tried to gently clamp down on it. Judith had said, just the day before, that they were the healthiest pair of twins she had ever seen in her career, with strong heartbeats and consistent movement patterns. If she wasn't worried about the babies, that was good enough for Meryl.

Another hour.

Wolfwood paced around the room, cracking his knuckles, biting his fingernails, looking sorely pissed off. Meryl knew better, though. He wasn't angry; he was so worried that he was about to vibrate out of his own skin.

She knew how he felt, but something was compelling her to stay strangely calm. Milly was getting more and more jumpy, and Wolfwood was quickly becoming a wreck himself. Meryl needed to stay strong for them, if nothing else. They needed a foundation to stand on.

As the third hour crept by, Meryl almost felt as bad for Wolfwood as she did Vash. His knee was bouncing in that erratic way, his fingertips shaking as they rubbed his chest.

"Go ahead and smoke one."

Wolfwood started and looked up. "Huh?"

Luida held up one finger. "Just this once."

Warily, Wolfwood dug his lighter and box of cigarettes out of his pocket, tapping one out. "You gonna shoot me between the eyes if I do? Is this a test?"

"Of course not."

Brad gave Luida a cocked brow. "You've gotten awful soft."

She smiled, though it was faint and strained. "No. I just remember how anxious you got when you were trying to quit."

Brad reddened and looked away. "Hmph."

Slowly, Wolfwood put the cigarette between his lips, but didn't light it. He stuck his lighter and the box back in his pocket.

Meryl tilted her head at him, confused.

"He doesn't need to breathe it," Wolfwood mumbled, worrying the filter between his teeth. "It would stick to my clothes."

Meryl's shoulders lowered, her heart warming in spite of everything.

Of course.

As Wolfwood chewed on his cigarette, Meryl leaned into his side. A strong arm drew her closer. She touched the cross hanging from the rosary around his neck.

Please, let him be alright.

 

⁌

 

When Judith finally came out to the waiting room clad in surgical scrubs nearly five hours after shutting them out of the infirmary, Wolfwood immediately hated the look on her face. She looked like a few years had been shaved off of her lifespan.

As every inhabitant of the waiting room leapt to their feet in unison, Judith held her hands out in front of her and said, "he's okay. All three of them are."

Despite her trying to head off their panic, the deep crevices on her forehead and the visible quiver in her fingers told Wolfwood that panic might still be warranted at some point.

"What happened?" Meryl asked as Judith sank down into a chair, scrubbing her forehead and sighing wearily.

"He had a strangulated hernia, hidden underneath the scar tissue."

Wolfwood's skin crawled. Holy shit.

Milly shifted nervously. "I'm sorry, but. What's a hernia...?"

"It's okay, Milly. You don't have to be sorry. His..." Judith let out a breath, seeming to consider how to explain it in layman's terms. "So, a hernia is when a small tear develops in the muscle wall of the abdomen and can allow your insides to bulge out in a little knot under your skin. Pregnancy stretches the abdominal muscles quite thin and puts a lot of pressure on them, right?" Milly nodded. "In Vash's case, his uterus is putting so much pressure on his organs that a portion of his lower intestine about as long as my hand—" Judith gestured with her hands for illustration, forcing her curled up fist between the middle and ring fingers of her other hand "—burst through that hole in his abdominal wall, trapping it in the small space and cutting off the blood flow to it."

Milly looked a bit like she wished she hadn't asked.

"Goddamn," Brad uttered.

Judith's eyes were half-lidded and pointed at the floor. "Strangulated hernias can cause tissue necrosis within minutes in humans if they aren't treated with haste. Vash will heal from it in a matter of days, now that his intestine is no longer trapped and his abdominal muscles aren't trying to heal around it. All things considered, it was a fairly easy fix."

Wolfwood stared at her, breathing steadily. "If it was such a damn walk in the park, why are your fingers trembling?"

After several thin breaths and an audible swallow, Judith whispered, "Anesthesia doesn't really work on him."

Wolfwood's stomach folded in half.

"He was awake for it?" Milly shrilled louder than Wolfwood had ever heard her speak, her expression a mixture of horror and outrage and her fists wrapped into tight balls at her sides. Meryl looked like she was about ready to tackle Judith and claw her eyes out.

"No. Not awake, not fully," Judith said hastily. Luida interrupted, probably to take some of the heat off of her.

"Vash's metabolic processes don't work the same way as a human's. Anesthesia doesn't put him to sleep, but rather, works sort of like nitrous oxide. He wasn't asleep, but he wasn't awake." She looked to Judith for confirmation, who nodded.

"Sounds too fucking awake for my liking," Wolfwood spat.

Judith's eyes pooled up, and instant regret twisted Wolfwood's innards like a dishrag.

"Do you think I wanted to hurt him? Nicholas, he begged us to stop through the whole surgery, crying out for Rem, and...and his brother," she shuddered out. "If I could've stopped, I certainly would've. But we couldn't just stop. We had to strap him down and keep going, or we risked leaving him with permanent bowel damage that he would've had to open his gate and use his own life force as fuel to heal."

Meryl, Wolfwood, and Milly all exchanged a shocked glance. Meryl rested her hand on Judith's shoulder, and as Judith smeared her silent tears away, Wolfwood did his best to give her a break.

She was just as shaken as the rest of them.

"So the surgery went well?" Brad asked. "I mean. Besides."

"It went...reasonably well, yes. We got the hernia repaired, even if it took us longer. He should heal up nicely. But..." Judith sniffled and accepted the tissue Luida pressed into her hand. "It was hard enough to just repair a hernia with him thrashing around and pulling on his restraints. The last five hours just proved to me that it would be far too dangerous to perform such a delicate operation as a Cesarean on him."

Milly's eyes widened into saucers. Meryl covered her mouth. Brad and Luida exchanged a glance full of dread. Wolfwood's stomach soured even further at the looks on their faces, and the distinct feeling that he was several mental steps behind everyone else sank in his chest like tar being sucked down a drain.

"A what?"

Judith looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes and winced.

"He...he asked me a few days ago if I could surgically remove the babies when the time comes."

All of a sudden, Wolfwood pulse was jackhammering in his throat.

What?

He shook his head, mouth like ash. His hand feebly lifted and fell. "He never..."

Brad's hands landed on his shoulders, coaxing him to sit back down.

Judith seemed to shrink before his very eyes. "I didn't figure he had worked up the courage yet." She gave a shaky sigh. "A Cesarean section is an alternative to natural childbirth. It's performed with a spinal block that only numbs from the waist down, so the mother can remain awake to see the baby as soon as it's removed from the uterus without actually feeling any pain. It sounds ideal, but it's still a major surgery with seven separate incisions through six layer of tissue, and a lot of reaching around in the mother's body to maneuver the baby out once the uterus is open. With anesthesia having little to no effect on Vash's pain levels...you can understand why I'm apprehensive."

Just hearing that made Wolfwood want to puke. He couldn't even imagine actually going through it.

"If he moved even a fraction of an inch during the surgery, you could nick an artery, or his placentas, or even one of the babies," Luida said quietly. "It's just not feasible. There isn't a person alive who could stay perfectly still while being sliced open by a scalpel and having two babies pulled out of them. Not even Vash." She crossed her arms. "And even if he could somehow, the pain would still be unbearable and deeply traumatizing."

"For the love of God, let's avoid piling on even more trauma," Brad said, firm and final. "The poor kid has enough of that to last a million years."

"Fuck this," the hushed, disgusted voice of Vash whispered in Wolfwood's memory. He and Meryl locked eyes; fear and uncertainty reflected back at him in slate blue.

"I know. I know," Judith moaned, resting her forehead on the heel of her hand. "I hate to put him through a natural birth again, but...it's the only way." She sighed, wet and defeated. "I wanted to be able to give that to him, but not if it would put them all at risk."

None of them knew what to say from there. Meryl sat by Judith, rubbing her shoulder while she sniffled and blotted her nose and eyes. Milly chewed her lip, a troubled frown marring her forehead. Brad draped his arm around Luida, and though she kept her arms crossed and her eyes pointed at the floor, she leaned into his side, pressing her temple to his cheek.

"When can we see him," Wolfwood finally asked when saddened silence replaced Judith's tears.

"He finally lost consciousness while we were sewing him up. Let him sleep for as long as he can." Judith massaged her temples with her thumb and fingers, probably trying to rub away a headache. "He earned some rest."

God. Had he ever. Vash deserved to sleep for the next hundred years after that shitshow.

But, "as long as he can" ended up only being about an hour. Halfway through a doleful evening meal that tasted like nothing, Judith informed them that Vash was awake and asking for them.

Milly hung back.

"It isn't my place, ma'am," she whispered, timidly pulling away when Meryl took her wrist to coax her up from her chair. "I've already...there are...I-I've intruded enough for one day."

Wolfwood's shoulders lowered with a sigh. He'd seen how confused Milly had looked when Judith had mentioned Vash going through natural birth before. He sometimes forgot that she didn't have all the context that he and Meryl did. Or, at least, she'd never been explicitly told.

...well, now she knew Vash was a Plant, at the very least. Now that she'd seen that sickly red flash of patterns on his throat. Maybe she needed some time alone to process everything.

Wolfwood scrubbed a hand through his hair. What a mess.

"I ain't gonna make you go, big girl."

"Please, give Mr. Vash my love," she begged. Her forehead was resting in her hand, her eyes pleading. "I...I may not love him the same way you and ma'am do, but...I'm so very fond of him. I don't want him to think..."

Meryl hugged Milly around her broad shoulders. "I know Vash loves you, too," she said softly.

Milly managed a nod. "I'll come see him once he's feeling a bit better, I promise. He just needs you two right now. I can wait."

A pursed smile tugged Wolfwood's mouth sideways. He gave Milly's ponytail a light tug. "If that's what ya want."

"Mm." Her silvery blue eyes crinkled at the corners, and as far as Wolfwood could tell, it was genuine. "Go on, now. Don't keep him waiting."

The only noise on the walk to the infirmary was their footsteps, echoing coldly on the titanium flooring. Halfway there, Meryl's cold hand slipped into Wolfwood's. He gave it a reassuring squeeze.

"How awake is he," Wolfwood asked, just as Judith was about to lead them through the infirmary door. She looked over her shoulder; her eyes were conflicted.

"Perfectly lucid. Like he just woke up from a ten minute nap."

Wolfwood breathed out a rough sigh. Jesus Christ.

They followed her inside. Vash was lying on his side in the infirmary bed that had practically become his second home, hooked up to several different monitors. His faster-than-human heart rate beeped softly from one, and from another, the swishy, thudding pulses of the babies. There was an oxygen cannula in his nose. The crisp grey hospital shirt they had changed him into had ridden up on his rounded side far enough to expose a square of surgical gauze, taped down with clear dressing.

Wolfwood shuddered inwardly. Vash's intestine had popped through his muscle wall, right under there. But, he looked okay. As okay as he probably could be after an ordeal like that. At least he seemed like he was in significantly less pain than before; his eyes were clear as crystal with no delirium in sight.

Meryl made it to the bed first, hefting herself halfway onto the mattress to wrap Vash in a very calculated hug around the neck, far away from his belly. Immediately, Vash was shushing her, reaching up to stroke her hair with his only hand. An unintelligible little rush of words from her made Vash's expression pinch.

"I know. I'm sorry." He craned his neck to kiss her cheek. "I'm okay now."

Wolfwood rounded the bed to sit on the other side, leaning down to cradle the side of Vash's face and press a lingering kiss to his temple. He smelled like antiseptic and salt.

"Wow." An odd little laugh wobbled from Vash's throat, and it gave Wolfwood pause. "I should pull this more often if you two are going to shower me in affection like this."

Wolfwood didn't pay much attention to Meryl's indignant protests, but rather, to how carefully measured Vash's breathing was. He was pale, of course he was, but it was more than just the fatigued aftermath of surgery. His eyes were wild.

Judith, who'd been jotting down his and the babies' vitals on her clipboard, slowly stuck her pen back in her scrub pocket and held the clipboard to her chest like a shield. She then took a deep, slow breath.

"Vash—"

"I know." Vash was gazing at a point somewhere between the corner of the ceiling and the vastness of space. He shivered, as if what he was seeing was horrifying. "...you can't."

Fucking hell. He'd already figured it out. Wolfwood closed his eyes and rubbed them with one hand, hard enough to see fizzles of pink and green. Meryl made a miserable sound.

"...and how okay are you with that?" Judith asked carefully.

Vash's hand came down to ever so gently rest on his side, just above the gauze. His belly hung slightly off his torso, cradled on a pillow that Judith had probably stuck under it to keep its weight from straining his back. He pulled his lips inward, twisted them to the side, like he was chewing the inside of his cheek. His expression was strange and vulnerable.

Judith sat down at the head of the bed next to Meryl. She placed her hand on top of Vash's head, smoothing her thumb over his temple.

"If you really..." Judith inhaled, careful. "I might could still...maybe we can research a way. I could see if a spinal tap might make the medication more effective, or we could perform some tests with substances we haven't tried, another sedative or narcotic—"

"That sounds like it would require a lot of trial and error." Vash gave her a terribly shrewd side-eye. "Would that be safe for the babies?"

Judith's answer was immediate. "Debatably so."

Vash's eyes hardened, jaw flexing. Behind his eyes lay a world of hurt and fear, but in sharp juxtaposition, his brow was set in stone and his breathing was perfectly even.

"If it isn't a hundred percent safe for them, I don't want it."

Wolfwood shouldn't have expected any less.

Vash only made eye contact in short intervals, looking everywhere else but at Meryl and Wolfwood in between. "I was planning on talking to you guys about it soon, but. Well." His laugh was soaked in self-loathing and pointed at the wall. "No need now, huh. Surprise, I'm a coward."

"Vash!" Meryl hissed in scolding dismay.

"It was so selfish of me. I realize that now. I wasn't thinking about them. Only myself and my stupid...whatever it is." He was rambling, welling up. "I never should've asked that of you, Judy. I'm sorry, I was just b—"

"Trying to suffer a little less?" Wolfwood interrupted, crossing his arms. "Wow, you're just an irredeemable fuckin' asshole, aren't you."

Vash looked both annoyed and trapped. His eyes drifted downward, stormy and shadowed with stress.

Bullseye.

"If I had gone through what you have, I would've wanted the same thing." Meryl took off her shoes and crossed her legs underneath her. "There's no shame in it. People get C-sections all the time in the larger cities. It's really common."

Vash was silent for an uncomfortable stretch. Judith, reading the room, quietly slipped out. As Vash watched her go, his brow pinched. When he spoke, it was halting.

"A few days ago, Judith had just mentioned to me that...the babies are as...they're going to be as big as...my first."

The beeping from the pulse monitor sped up. His throat bobbed in a nauseated swallow.

"...and it...really scared me. That's the one that...y-you know."

The one that had split his entire perineum up the middle.

Wolfwood felt sick.

Honesty was always a bit bewildering on Vash. Unbalanced and skittish, like he, too, could barely believe he was choosing to be a hundred percent truthful. It had probably burned him so many times in the past to speak his own feelings that it felt unnatural and dangerous to him.

"Oh, sweetheart," Meryl whispered, brushing Vash's hair back from his forehead. He looked up at both of them with wet eyes, so sincere that it made Wolfwood's stomach feel like a clenched fist.

"I also didn't want you two to have to...it...last time was difficult for you, too. Not just me." His face clouded over. "I'm almost to the point that...I've wondered, if." Vash lifted his hand fruitlessly and let it fall, searching for words. "Maybe you guys should...I don't know, not be there."

Instantly, two sets of hackles raised.

"What the fuck," Wolfwood hissed.

Meryl clenched her fists. "That's not a funny joke, Vash—"

"I'm not saying I'm banning you from being there," Vash quickly amended. "Just that I can't...I know it wasn't an easy thing to...be there for. And that I wouldn't blame either of you if you didn't want to."

Wolfwood exchanged a long-suffering glance with Meryl, who looked about as hacked off as he felt.

"I would knock your fuckin' block off if you weren't pregnant," Wolfwood growled. "You absolute fool. You really think we would ever be content to just let you suffer all alone?"

Vash's calm, accepting expression peeled Wolfwood's skin up like a chisel. "I can handle it. I'm used to it."

Meryl breathed in and out too evenly, probably talking herself out of wringing Vash's neck. Yeah, same, Wolfwood thought crossly. "And you think that's going to make us feel better?"

Vash's shoulder twitched up. "Not particularly."

"At least you're learning," Meryl muttered. Vash sighed. "You've said some ridiculous things to us in the past few years, but this really takes the cake. How could you ever think we would be okay with just...abandoning you to deal with something so difficult with no emotional support?"

A wry half smile pulled Vash's mouth sideways. "Sometimes, hard things have to be done for the greater good."

"Ha! Oh, what, the greater good of me pulling all my hairs out one by one in the waiting room and Nick giving himself five different types of lung cancer?" Meryl retorted, crossing her arms. "Greater good. For God's sake."

Before Vash could make some other unfunny, self-belittling quip, Wolfwood reached for his hand and gripped it, hard. Those blue peepers found him, blinking.

"We ain't backin' down, blondie." Wolfwood worried the pad of his thumb across a node of scar tissue on the back of Vash's hand. "You're mistaken if you think I ain't catchin' one of those little sprouts when it's time for 'em to come out."

Meryl's brows raised. "Only one? What, your stomach too weak to handle both?"

Wolfwood snorted, giving her a forceful poke on the forehead. "No, you little smartass, their godmother is catching the other one."

"Their godm—" Her breath audibly hitched at Wolfwood's pointed stare. She lifted a hand to her chest as if Wolfwood had jabbed her right in the heart instead of on the forehead. When she looked down at Vash, the affirming smile he gave her actually looked like him, rather than a specter sanded down to bare bones by pain, and it lifted Wolfwood's spirits. "You're serious," Meryl realized, tears pooling.

Vash let go of Wolfwood's hand to cup Meryl's round cheek. "Wouldn't have it any other way." He brushed away the tear that rolled down with his thumb.

"I...y—but..." Meryl swallowed around a bleating noise that made Wolfwood's eyes try to sting. "...they're not...mine."

"Biology doesn't matter," Vash whispered. "They're ours. You included. We want you in their lives."

With a breathy sob, Meryl closed her eyes and grasped Vash's wrist. Tears slid down her face, and Vash patiently caught every last one with his knuckle.

"At least they can't inherit my height, I guess," Meryl finally said with a sniffle and an emotional laugh.

Vash's eyes twinkled. "They would be just as cute as you if they could."

And yeah, Wolfwood's head was totally not inundated with sudden images of how cherubic Saverem-Stryfe babies would be. He tucked the thought next to his heart, unwilling to voice it aloud. Instead, he rubbed Meryl's back.

"God knows they'll need more influence to draw from than just us two knuckleheads."

Vash aimed a sweet smile down at his belly. "They'll have Aunt Milly, too."

Aunt Milly. Yeah, sounded about right. As long as she didn't make some kinda issue out of Vash being a Plant, everything would be hunky dory. Though, Wolfwood doubted she would give a shit. She seemed the type to be pretty accepting.

Meryl's eyes softened like fine navy silk, and her watery smile beamed near-deadly levels of sunlight directly through Wolfwood's chest. "I love you both," she breathed, leaning down to kiss Vash once, twice on the lips, briefly pressing her forehead to his before rising up to bestow the same on Wolfwood.

Her lips were always so buttery soft that Wolfwood couldn't believe they were real, much less that she was willingly kissing him. He settled his hand at the small of her back, savoring her sweetness and nudging her velvety cheek with his nose when they separated.

"Same here," he croaked.

"I love you, too," Vash softly echoed, then his eyes turned to Wolfwood, shining. "Both of you."

Wolfwood brushed Vash's cheek with his knuckles, unable to speak.

It was a curious thing, being in love with two people at once, and even curiouser to watch those two people love each other, also. At one time, he would've balked inwardly at the whole thing and dug his heels into the dirt, but he felt no need to fight it now. It was the truth, plain and simple.

"And because we love you, we want to be there to help you when the babies come. We never want you to have to go through that by yourself again." Meryl gently touched Vash's belly, far away from the surgical site. "Please, try to understand. If I thought you really wanted to be alone, I would stop pestering you. But...you said it yourself last time. Having us there with you for support made it less miserable." She gave Vash a look. "Or was that just a lie to spare our feelings?"

After a telling pause, Vash closed his eyes.

"No," he whispered.

After a beat, Meryl took his hand. "Then, please. Let us help you again. Let us love you."

Vash closed his eyes and puffed out a defeated little sound that was tinged with amusement. But, when his eyes opened again, they were the same steely, determined electric blue, with no pained grey in sight.

His soft, unwavering "okay" filled Wolfwood's heart with hope and relief.

 

⁌

Notes:

*lies down* mashwood... :')

Pls let me know if you enjoyed if you'd like 🖤❤️🤍

Chapter 8: another life² (part 2)

Notes:

................yeah I have no defense 😩 but at least I can definitively say this is the LAST TIME I'll be upping the chapter count. Positively absolutely, I pwomise.

I blinked and half the year was gone. I'm sorry yall 😣 I wish I had another brain and a few more arms so I could write multiple things at once...

For once, there are really no warnings in this chapter besides some general pregnancy stuff that's slightly gross, but yall probably expect that from me by now, lol

And yall, this is just so rad. Tumblr user cinderrubynatashaeverdeen (and GracefullyAutistic here on Ao3) crafted this fic a YOUTUBE PLAYLIST. No one has ever done this for me before and I'm floored by how thoughtful it was!! When I tell you every song is perfect for this fic...I still can't get over it. You can listen to the playlist right here! Thank you again, Ruby, I appreciate it more than you know! 🥹

I hope this chapter is worth the wait! Enjoy ❤️

Evidently tuckered out by the stresses of the day and emotionally drained by their heart-to-heart talk, Vash drifted off to sleep with Wolfwood's fingers stroking through his hair, Meryl's hand in his, and his chalky lips parted to leave a dark little patch of drool on his pillow.

Good. He needed some restful sleep after the ordeal he'd been through.

He still looked so...sick. Like that hernia had been a disease, a malevolent parasite gnawing away at him from the inside out, sucking the vigor from his body. Which, Meryl supposed, wasn't too far left of the truth. His body had been confused and struggling to heal his abdominal wall around his intestine, which the unyielding pressure of his crowded uterus against the hernia hadn't allowed for.

It made Meryl wonder, with sweat dampening her palms and stress tying her stomach into a constrictor knot, just how narrowly they had avoided Vash's gate putting the proverbial foot down and involuntarily swinging wide open to heal him, burning even more of his golden hair soot black and his lifespan along with it.

She knew she shouldn't think about that for too long or she would drive herself to a splitting migraine, but damn her professional curiosity, she couldn't help but wonder sometimes how it all worked. Was it a certain threshold of injury that caused Vash's more powerful—and consequence-carrying—healing abilities to kick in? Was it being injured for a long time with something actively preventing the healing? What were the parameters here?

...on second thought, maybe she didn't need to know.

As she studied Vash's pale countenance and damp browline and the deep, deep bags underneath his closed eyes, her mind inevitably wandered backward to sleepless nights and dismal radio calls with Wolfwood during the miserable height of Vash's morning sickness. Was this how he'd looked back then? Like a stiff enough breeze would crumble him to pieces and blow him away to join the rest of the dust and sand?

Perhaps it was better, then, that Meryl hadn't been there, because seeing Vash like this was rough. Wolfwood was a trooper for sticking by his side and taking care of him, but Meryl knew for a fact that his heart had been in shambles the whole time.

She shivered with the unsteady chill that crawled down her spine, reaching up to rub the meat of her shoulder with her unoccupied hand.

"You need to eat."

Meryl lifted her heavy head to see Wolfwood regarding her with a knowing, furrowed brow.

"Your fingers are shakin'."

She swallowed, looking back down at their slumbering companion. There was a little pucker on Vash's forehead, like he was still troubled even in sleep. Thankfully, though, his eyelids weren't moving, so he wasn't dreaming.

Yet.

Meryl smoothed her palm over damp, downy blond, fighting the irrational quiver that tried to grip her lower lip.

"Babe." Wolfwood's tone was firm, but tender. Imploring. "You didn't eat breakfast."

Meryl knew that Vash was safer here in Ship Three's infirmary than he could've possibly been anywhere else on the entire planet, but somehow, she just couldn't bear to leave him yet. The thought of him waking up without both of them at his side after such a distressing event threatened to drive a rail spike through her sternum and split her ribs wide open.

Her lips parted dryly, but nothing came out. She turned moistened, pleading eyes back to Wolfwood, shifting her clammy palm in Vash's hand to get a better grip on his limp, scarred fingers.

Wolfwood's mouth thinned into a line. To anyone else, he probably would've looked annoyed, but Meryl knew better. His gaze was understanding, accepting. He stood up and rounded the end of the bed, coming to tuck his arm around her. Gratefully, she leaned into his sturdy warmth, squishing her cheek on the firm plane of his abdomen. Calloused fingertips played with the short hair at her nape.

"What sounds good," he murmured.

Meryl shook her head. It felt too heavy on her neck. "Nothing," she whispered.

"How 'bout oatmeal? You like that. It's nice n' light."

She made a face against Wolfwood's shirt, shoulders slumping. "I don't know."

The lightest tug on her left earring. "C'mon, Mrs. Stampede. You know it'll make you feel better in the long run."

"Mrs. Stamp—oh, shut up," she muttered when her brain caught up with her ears, shoving her palm into his stomach.

Wolfwood's taunting grin was audible. "Quit actin' like him, then." She squirmed away, pouting darkly, but he didn't let her go until he'd cupped her chin in one hand and planted a humming kiss on the bridge of her nose. "Sit tight."

She ran her thumb over Vash's pointy knuckles.

"I'm not going anywhere."

Especially not after seeing a shade of light under Vash's skin that she'd only ever seen on dying Plants. Vash would be lucky if she let him out of her sight for the rest of her lifetime.

She had to admit that the oatmeal did help her feel better, however marginally. It at least quelled her nausea and kept her from feeling like she would crack her skull open on the floor if she stood up too quickly.

Soon, they were rejoined by a forlorn and contemplative Milly, who curled up in the chair on the other side of Vash's bed without a word about what she'd seen. Perhaps Meryl should've said something, ventured to give some sort of explanation as Milly's superior, but just thinking of how arduous it would be to explain weighed her down with fatigue that was too heavy to power through.

If Milly wanted answers, she could ask Vash herself. Those weren't Meryl's secrets to tell.

It did do her heart good, though, to see Milly reach for Vash's hand during a bad dream and hold it like it was a priceless thing.

Hour by hour, as they kept careful watch over Vash and the babies, the most curious thing began to happen: all evidence of sickness slowly dissipated from Vash's body like fog at dawn's touch. His breathing deepened and evened out. He stopped sweating, and his previously alarming body temperature cooled down to a little above his normal warmth. The babies soon woke up to stretch and squirm around in their snug, comfy home, shifting the fabric of the grey hospital gown that covered them. When Meryl rested her hand just above Vash's navel, the gentle knock of tiny knees against her palm made her smile and lifted her heart with hope.

At least someone was feeling good.

Meryl's earlier mental comparison of the hernia to a disease might have been more accurate than she thought, because as evening loomed, color pressed back into Vash's lips before their very eyes, and the nail beds of his fingernails lost their ominous mauve hue. Even the darkened half moons underneath his long, inky lashes seemed to fade, though they didn't entirely go away.

It was like watching a flower wilt in reverse.

"It's unbelievable just how much his body can endure," Judith murmured close to ten p.m., writing down Vash's perfectly normal vitals on her clipboard. She stuck the pen in her scrub pocket, gazing down at her curled-up, slumbering charge with disheartened pity that she normally wouldn't let him see. "I just wish he had to endure a little less often."

"Me, too," Milly whispered, tiny and sad. Both things that Milly should never be.

When Vash stirred awake that night, Meryl was almost unsettled by how healthy he looked, ruddy-cheeked and sweetly rumpled like he'd just woken up from a pleasant afternoon nap. The dire emergency of that morning seemed a faraway nightmare now. Quietly, she closed her book and set it to the side, hefting herself out of the arm chair and sliding one leg onto the mattress to sit.

Droopy azure eyes squinted up at Meryl's face, then Vash shifted, hugging her thigh close with his arm like a beloved plush toy and pressing the seam of his mouth against it.

"Wh'time s'it?" He whispered, soft and sleepy and seeping heat through the fabric of Meryl's pajama pants. Meryl stroked his hair back from his temple, rubbing a circle into the warm, petal soft skin with her thumb. He hummed a pleased little noise through his nose.

He's so cute, how is he so cute?! Her heart cried at the skies, shaking its fists in disbelief.

"Nearly midnight," she whispered back so as not to wake anyone up; Milly was wrapped in a blanket burrito and conked out in the chair on the other side of the bed, and much to Judith's exasperation, Wolfwood had unceremoniously dragged a mattress over from one of the unused beds, plopped it on the floor next to Vash's bed, and was stretched out on it like a stray tom cat, snoring softly with his elbow thrown over his eyes.

Meryl was a little shocked that their talking hadn't woken him. Wolfwood was an extremely light sleeper, a fact that made her hopelessly sad if she thought about it too deeply. He'd probably gotten next to no restful sleep in the past few days, too scraped-raw by worry.

"Mmgh." Vash's sudden, closed-mouth grunt set Meryl on edge until she saw him massage his fingertips beneath his rib and press a long-suffering breath through pursed lips. "Good morning to you, too, son," he grumbled in a whisper, covering the spot with his palm. Meryl saw his belly wobble and undulate beneath his hand.

She worried her lip. "Hope he doesn't end up kicking the surgical scar."

Vash squeezed his eyes shut in a few firm blinks. "...oh. Yeah. Surgery." His fingers wandered to his nose, adjusting the nasal prongs of the cannula as if he'd just remembered they were there. "I'm sure it'll be fine."

Meryl's heart tentatively perked up. "You must be feeling alright if you were able to forget that."

Vash tilted his head in that birdlike way, squishing his cheek up on the pillow. "I'm okay. Nothing's hurting too bad."

Meryl's eyes narrowed. "Too bad?"

Blue eyes darted to the side.

She halfway moved to stand.

"No!" Vash whispered, tightening his arm around her thigh. "I'm just a little sore, and that's normal after surgery, right? I feel fine otherwise, I promise. I feel a hundred thousand percent better than I did before. Let Judy sleep."

If Judith was able to sleep at all. Vash wasn't the only one who had suffered today.

Meryl sighed, scratching Vash's scalp with her fingernails. "Okay. Can I bring you anything? Something to nibble on?"

Vash shook his head, moving to push himself up on his arm. Meryl had to suppress the instinct to shove him back down and make him rest. Evidently, it showed on her face, because he gave her a consoling smile.

"I'm not getting up. Just stretching." He arched his back and stretched his arm and stump above himself, then shifted his hips with a creaky noise in his throat. Meryl heard a dull pop, then, with a tight sigh of relief, Vash reached around to dig his knuckles into his lower back. "I'm not hungry yet. Anesthesia kills my appetite."

"Well, here." Meryl passed him the cup of water she'd kept waiting on the bedside tray. "At least drink this. I know your throat is dry; I can hear it."

Vash looked very much like he wanted to refuse, but with a self-soothing rub over his bump, as if to remind himself why he needed fluids, he accepted the cup and sipped carefully. As he did, he looked down at Wolfwood on the floor to his left, then Milly to his right. Something pinched in his expression, but then it was gone.

Sometimes, Meryl wished she could read his mind.

Once he'd drained the cup, she set it aside and helped him lie down again. He struggled to get comfortable, holding his breath and screwing his face up as he did.

"This might be less trouble if I wasn't as big as a house, huh," he laughed under his breath as Meryl helped him arrange the pillow underneath the side of his belly again.

Meryl looked at him in askance. "You are not as big as a house. If I didn't know you had twins in there, I wouldn't believe you if you told me."

Vash patted his stomach with a pitiful sigh. "You flatter me, sugar plum."

"It's only because your waist is so long," she snorted, poking him in the side. "If it were me, I would look like the third moon."

"You would be so cute," Vash mused dreamily.

Meryl made a face. "Hell no. I would be so top-heavy."

Vash waved her away with a pshh. "We could carry you."

"Ooo-kay, it's time for you to sleep now," Meryl grumbled, pretending to smother Vash with a stray pillow. He silently flailed his arm in mock struggle, and when he fell limp, she pulled the pillow away.

He just opened one eye and stuck the tip of his tongue out.

Meryl rolled her eyes. "You're such a clown."

His eyes twinkled. "But I'm your clown?"

"Vash."

"Fine, fine." Vash held out his arm to her, wiggling his fingers.

Meryl hesitated, thinking that she should probably be sleeping on the floor with Wolfwood since Vash was recovering.

Vash read her mind. "You won't hurt me, doll."

Slowly, she took the pillow in her hands and shifted to lie down next to him, turning onto her side with at least a foot between them. Without missing a beat, Vash wrapped his arm around her and slid her close, flush against his bump. Meryl squeaked, her arm hovering over his side.

"I-I don't know where it..." she closed her mouth and nodded gratefully when Vash took her wrist and pulled her arm up to fall a bit higher over his side, far away from the surgical dressing. She snuggled around the solid globe, lulled by Vash's sleepy body heat. His temperature was still slightly elevated. A nudge of unborn feet against her stomach nearly dissolved her heart into sugary goo, and she hugged Vash's belly a bit closer, curling up to place a kiss on it.

Vash's hand pressed between her shoulder blades, large and hot through her pajama shirt. "They might keep you up. Bedtime for us is usually party time for them."

Meryl smiled up at him. "I don't mind."

"We'll see if you mind tomorrow morning," he chuckled. His dark brows suddenly furrowed, his fingertips kneading at her shoulder. "You're really tense."

She shrugged one shoulder, looking down. "I've had a few things to be worried about," she said quietly.

Vash's fingers hooked under her chin, lifting it. When their eyes met, she drew in a soft inhale; his Plant markings were etching into existence, gentle and white and healthy. Oh, thank God; she never wanted to see them red again for as long as they lived.

He cupped the back of her head and angled his head closer, a hesitant invitation. Meryl met him halfway. As soon as their foreheads met, she closed her eyes, accepting the intimate comfort with arms wide open.

Vash didn't do this very often. Even though Luida had declared it perfectly safe, he still seemed to think it was underhanded or deceitful in some way to be able to calm a human down by establishing a thready, paper-thin link with them, but Meryl had told him long ago that he was more than welcome to use this gentle power on her whenever he saw fit. Even still, he always timidly asked permission before he did it, like he was giving her an opportunity to come to her senses and back out.

It wasn't at all the same way Vash could interface with Dependent Plants, and they weren't reading each other's minds or anything crazy like that. If Meryl focused extra hard, sometimes she could grasp a fleeting sensation of emotion, not words but other things intangible, that made her feel so loved and protected that it sometimes brought her to tears if she was upset enough beforehand. She struggled to describe exactly the way it made her physically feel, but she supposed it was similar to sinking into a tub full of steaming water, loosening her limbs and draining the tension from her muscles. Almost like Vash was pulling her stress to the surface and skimming it off like impurities from liquid metal. It was amazing, really, and only further solidified her belief that humans and Independents were always meant to coexist closely. To love and care for one another and bridge the gap between human and Plant.

She reached up to cup Vash's soft cheeks in her hands, rubbing her index fingers up and down the strong curve of his jawbone. The tip of his nose nuzzled the bridge of hers, and one of those muted, musical chirps fluttered somewhere in his throat, an unmistakably affectionate sound that tugged her lips into an involuntary smile. Nebulous tendrils brushed the corners of her mind, like tickly little feelers. Unconsciously, she pressed closer, lost in the tender head rush and feeling more at peace than she had in weeks.

When Vash leaned back and touched a feather-light kiss to her forehead, she was already halfway to dreamland.

A tiny, whispered "God, I love you so much" carried her the rest of the way.

 

⁌

⁌

 

Meryl had known that Vash would heal disturbingly quickly—after all, she'd seen his bloody tongue knit itself back together from nearly being bitten off in less than thirty minutes—but no matter how many times she saw it, it still left her in awe.

Surgery was supposed to be something that kept you in a hospital bed for a while. Especially for something as serious as a hernia, and much less during a multiple pregnancy. But, the next morning, less than a full twenty-four hours after the surgery, Judith examined Vash's side with the ultrasound and pronounced him to be fully healed. The surgical scar had faded to nearly nothing, just a neat line only visible if you squinted, juxtaposing the knotted expanse of scar tissue mere centimeters away.

Honestly, Vash complained more about Judith removing his catheter than he did any lingering pain from the surgery.

He didn't get off entirely scot-free, though.

"I'm putting you on bed rest for the next week or so," Judith stated, pulling her glove off with a snap and adjusting the sheet that was beginning to slide down Vash's thighs and bunch up at the underside of his belly.

Vash shot up onto his elbows looking thoroughly betrayed. "Huh? But why? I'm feeling so much better! Fit as a fiddle!"

On her way to dispose of her glove and wash her hands, Judith pinned him with a disapproving stare; Vash shrank back down into the bed with a yip like she'd threatened him with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire.

"Your cervix has started to shorten, that's why. I imagine the stress of the past week is probably the culprit."

Vash pressed a hand over the babies with a nervous frown. "Oh."

Milly hummed, crossing her arms. "Not good," she mumbled.

Wolfwood stuck a hand in his pocket, fishing out a lollipop he was probably wishing was a cigarette. "Layman's terms, please."

"Well. Remember how I said he would be at the 'these babies could come at any time' stage soon?" Judith clapped her hands. "Congratulations, he's already there. His cervix beginning to efface means we're on baby watch until further notice. It could be a few hours, it could be days, it could be weeks." Vash made a pained gurgling noise at the word weeks. "No one can know for sure. But, the babies really don't need to be born just yet, if we can help it. Therefore, bed rest."

A little thrill shot through Meryl's stomach. They were so close to meeting the babies. Her godchildren, her brain reminded her with an ecstatic internal shriek.

Judith continued, turning back to Vash and leveling him with a stern index finger. The more she talked, the more he wilted. "So for the next week, no unsupervised trips around the ship. Move around as little as possible. No more than thirty minutes of walking or standing at a time. Nicholas can carry you to the geodome if you end up too stir-crazy, which I know you will within about ten minutes."

Wolfwood coughed out a sardonic laugh around his sucker. "Wow, okay. Just volunteer me for the heavy lifting, huh, granny." He aimed a smirk at Vash. "You better be glad the Punisher weighs as much as two of you."

Vash spluttered, wrapping his arms around his belly as if to shield the babies from the grave injustice that was their father. "Wow, yourself! Did you just call me fat?"

Wolfwood flicked him on the tip of his nose, earning a swipe of a hand and a throaty little closed-mouth shriek that was downright bratty. "No, I called myself hunky and strong. Keep up, baby mama. Jesus, and I thought you were an airhead before all the pregnancy brain shit."

"Meryllll," Vash whined, squishing his face into her lap. She and Milly both petted his feathery locks, cooing and carrying on.

"How do you endure such horrid treatment, Mr. Vash?" Milly asked, and Vash gave a high and haughty harrumph.

"It's hard work, being a battered housewife."

Meryl snorted, and Milly hid a surprised chortle in her hand. Wolfwood hooted with a glance upward; as he did, Vash flinched, hips jerking backward like he'd been punched in the stomach. "Ooh, Lord, let me step away before You strike him!"

"Fffffshit," Vash hissed, rubbing his side and glaring up at Wolfwood, and he was so rosy-cheeked and fiery-eyed and full of life compared to the past couple of weeks that Meryl's eyes tried to well up. "Keep it down, you startled him! I'm gonna start demanding hazard pay if he breaks my rib."

"From my broke ass? You're barking up the wrong tree, Mr. Typhoon. I'm just a poor traveling priest with nary a pence to my name, you see." Wolfwood sniffled and wiped invisible tears with theatrics clearly meant to mock Vash's usual shtick. "We men of the cloth do not take money for our good deeds."

"Oh, now who's lying?!" Vash screeched.

While Vash and Wolfwood squabbled in the background like they'd been married for sixty years, Judith shook her head and sighed, tidying up her equipment. "Make sure he sticks to his bed rest," she said under her breath to Meryl and Milly. "Now that he's feeling better, it might be hard to keep him still."

Meryl nodded. Milly stood rigidly at attention and gave a solemn salute.

But, in a move that surprised them all, Vash was meek and compliant with Judith's orders. Since he couldn't do a lot of walking or standing, they spent a lot of time hanging out in his bedroom, with varying numbers of them piled up in bed to keep him company.

His room looked much more like a room that belonged to a person now, rather than the cold space with hardly any personal touches it had been when they'd first met. Photographs from various stages of the pregnancy were tacked up here and there on the bulletin board Milly had hung up. An ugly little paperweight from Bernardelli headquarters sat on the desk. A colorful quilt that the ladies of Home had made for Vash draped over the end of the bed. Wolfwood's suit jacket was haphazardly slung over the desk chair. A pair of beautifully carved wooden cribs were tucked in one corner, a gift from old man Saul.

It felt lived in. Comfy.

Unfortunately, no matter which way Vash sat in a chair or turned in bed now, being comfy was hard to come by for him. It was no wonder; he was really starting to look like he could have a baby any time now.

The operative word there being baby, singular.

Just as Meryl had told him, it was almost impossible to believe he was carrying twins. He really didn't look big enough for it, but she knew for a fact that he felt it. His hips hurt him all the time now, as did the scars around his ribs that were pulled taut by the weight of his uterus. On the rare occasions that Wolfwood would let him walk to the bathroom on his own, Meryl could actually see how much the babies were affecting the way he walked. He sort of swayed from side to side a bit more, constantly compensating for his altered center of gravity.

Cute. Vash without a baby bump could already be adorable when he wanted to. With one? Catastrophic. Humanoid Typhoon, indeed. A natural disaster for the heart.

Meryl just wished that being pregnant wasn't wearing him out so much.

It was plain to see how restless it made him to lie around for most of the day with nothing to do but read and sleep and eat, but that stubborn look in his eyes said he wasn't going to break his bed rest, even if it drove him insane.

Thankfully, their daily, after-lunch trips to the geodome lifted Vash out of the dumps. With effortless tenderness, Wolfwood carried him in his arms like a groom would a bride, and the closer they got to the dome, the more genuine Vash's smile always became, his visible tension and tiredness lessening. It really was amazing how much he brightened with grass between his toes and the shadows of leaves on his skin. Even artificial sunlight and fresh air did him a world of good.

One such lazy afternoon, while Milly and Wolfwood helped Luida and a few other volunteers plant more fruit trees in another part of the dome, Meryl and Vash stuck their bare feet in the stream and listened to the burble of water over rocks and the rustle of the tree's branches above them.

Well. Vash stuck his feet in the water. Meryl managed to reach it with her toes. Nevertheless, it was nice.

"Feels good," Vash sighed out, leaning back on the heels of his hands. Meryl saw the lump of a baby foot poke out and skim downward underneath his shirt.

"Maybe it'll help the swelling in your ankles." She squeezed his thigh, scooching closer so that their knees touched. "How're you feeling?"

"How am I feeling?" Vash cocked his head, resting his cheek on his shoulder with a labored breath in and out that made his belly rise and fall. "I'm alright, I think." He smiled down at her, cheek squished up. "I got a pretty good night's sleep for once."

Meryl couldn't help but beam, swinging her feet to send water droplets flicking off. "I'm so glad to hear that."

"I still say we ought to go ahead and get a bigger bed for my room so you can sleep in there with us." Vash's lower lip poked out. "I miss you when you're gone."

"If you want to get as much sleep as you can while you can, you'll wait until a few months after the babies are born for that," she said with a snort. "You know I flop around for at least an hour before I get comfortable."

Vash's arms pulled her close, and he rubbed his cheek on her temple in dramatic commiseration. "That's fine, that's totally fine. Nowadays, so do I."

Meryl grinned, slipping her fingers between the reflective, obsidian bones of his prosthetic forearm. It was cool on her skin. "Well, for Nick's sake, at least, let's wait. He wouldn't get any sleep with both of us rolling around on the bed like two hotdogs in a pan."

"I'm a hotdog," Vash said airily. "You're one of those little barbecue cocktail weenies they serve at weddings."

"Shut up," she cried through a wheeze of laughter, giving him a gentle shove.

He kissed the top of her head several times, humming obnoxiously through each smack. "It's alright. You're our spicy little cocktail weenie."

"Ugh. You're ridiculous," she murmured, pressing her blushing cheek against his shoulder.

Maybe she could at least drag her mattress into Vash's room, so they wouldn't have to be separated. She really did miss being able to snuggle up in bed with them, and somehow, the sound of their soft snoring had become comforting to her. Plus, once the babies arrived, she could help Vash and Wolfwood take the night shift for feeding and diaper changes so they could get some sleep.

She was the twins' godmother; she wanted to step up and be involved as much as she possibly could when she didn't have to be at work.

A lot of people treated the term "godparent" like a cute little nickname, and she supposed it certainly could be, but for her, it went way deeper than that. She wouldn't be an honorary babysitter to the twins; she would be another legal guardian. If, God forbid, something ever happened to Wolfwood and Vash, the twins would be permanently placed in Meryl's care, and she would raise them in their biological parents' stead.

Wolfwood and Vash were dead serious about it, so dammit, Meryl was, too.

She rubbed the back of her index finger over a spot on Vash's stomach where one of the babies had just kicked again. "Someone's being a wiggle worm."

Vash chuckled. "That would be your godson. He's having a grand old time playing kickball with my side. I have to wonder what he thinks he's accomplishing."

Meryl's heart fluttered. "And his sister?"

A fond, but rueful scoff. "Still wedged way down in my hips. She hasn't moved from there in several days." He let go of Meryl to shift his weight back onto his prosthetic arm so he could caress the underside of his belly with his right hand. "Guess she'll be the older sibling, after all."

"Awh," Meryl whispered, pressing her fingertips in a gentle circle around the nudging little foot. "Hear that, buddy? You'll always have a big sister to protect you."

If Meryl hadn't been raising her head to look at Vash at that very instant, she would've missed the split second downward crumple of his lips. Her stomach sank at the fleeting glimpse of bottomless sorrow carving tired lines around his pretty eyes.

What had she...?

Oh. Her heart cramped.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to, um." She dropped her gaze. "Remind you."

Vash's fingers sifted through her hair. When she met his eyes again, his smile was faint, but real. "You don't have to be sorry. It's not like you did something horrible." He moved her hair behind her ear with a delicate touch, then dropped his hand, seeming weary. "I think about him all the time. Hard not to, y'know?"

Being an only child, Meryl could barely even conceptualize how gutting it must've been for Vash to lose his only brother. His own twin, his mirror image in every way.

Even if Knives had been a genocidal, abusive maniac, Vash had still loved him. Sadly enough, she was pretty sure that somewhere deep in Knives' withered heart, in a sick and toxic way, he had still loved Vash, too.

"Was he ever..." she bit her lip. "...normal?"

Vash's face softened with ancient fondness, cut through with regret. As he gazed up into the artificial blue of the sky panes, Meryl couldn't help but admire his strong profile. The elegant curve of his brow, his straight nose that turned slightly upward at the tip, the angle of his chin leading down to his prominent Adam's apple...such a striking silhouette.

"When we were little." Long lashes fluttered with contemplative blinks. "He loved to play the piano. We would play together sometimes."

Meryl's brows shot up. "I didn't know you played piano."

How was she still learning new things about him after so long...?

A hollow little laugh shook in the air. Vash's voice pinched down to almost nothing. "Not anymore."

Vicarious pain bled through Meryl's bones, heavy and stiff.

She rested her hand on his arm, rubbing it and feeling more than a little helpless. "I'm so sorry. I know you miss him."

"I felt it. When he died." Vash's fingers pressed around on the left side of his chest, his whole frame shivering like he'd felt a sudden blast of freezing air. "It was...blinding. Like my lung had been ripped straight out of me."

Horror stood the hair on Meryl's arms on end. She couldn't tear her eyes away from the immeasurable agony veiled in Vash's gaze. Like he was seeing the mouth of hell itself.

"Sometimes, I just...go outside and find a high place to look up at the sky, because it's the closest I'll ever get to seeing him again." He ground his teeth as if he was chewing back tears. "He died up there, and it was all my fault—"

"Vash," Meryl interjected softly. "No, it wasn't."

Vash snapped out of his trance to glance at her. A hint of devastated panic flashed across his face, then he mustered a weak, queasy smile.

"...I shouldn't dump that on you. I'm really sorry."

His genuine remorse felt like slamming into a concrete wall.

"You're not dumping anything on me." Incredulous, Meryl turned fully toward him and crossed her legs. "I'm more concerned that this is something you've never mentioned before."

Vash looked down and away. Fidgeted with his fingers. "Nick has a lot of trauma. Trauma that Nai caused, directly or indirectly. It wouldn't be right of me."

Meryl hated that he wasn't entirely wrong.

Her brow creased. "Well...I see where you're coming from, but your healing is no less important than Nick's. If...if you ever need to talk to someone about him, you know you can come to me, right?"

That received no verbal response, though Vash managed to scrape up another faint smile for her. He looked out across the stream to the swaying field of blue flowers, cradling his belly in his arms and thumbing tenderly across the underside.

"I think I want to give the babies middle names, after all."

It seemed like such an out-of-left-field subject change, but Meryl wasn't dense; she was pretty sure she knew exactly what train of thought Vash was headed down. The thought of that potential, impending blow-up with Wolfwood made her inwardly cringe.

She opened her mouth to ask, but was instead startled by the sudden realization that Vash was holding his breath, eyes slightly narrowed. His fingers tightened on his belly, and he leaned forward with one shoulder angled down, like he'd gotten a stitch in his side.

"Vash?"

He only shut his eyes, his brows furrowing sharply over them.

Meryl's heart threatened to kick a hole through her ribs. "Vash?"

"Gimme a minute," he whispered. His voice had pulled thin, reminding her far too much of how he'd sounded over her shoulder that awful day in the van on the way to New Moab. For what was definitely not just one minute, he breathed in and out, slow and measured. Meryl held down the lid as hard as she could on the rising urge to push herself to her feet and run for help.

Soon enough, though, Vash eventually let out a sigh that carried some finality and relief, rubbing up and down the sides of his bump and looking down at her. "That—oh." He wiped his damp forehead with the back of his hand, easy as you please. "I'm sorry. That scared you, didn't it."

His nonchalant tone had Meryl grinding her teeth against the urge to grab his shoulders and shake him. "Of course it did! What was that?!"

Vash's throat bobbed, and he seemed to be weighing whether or not to answer her. Meryl's blood thudded through her veins.

"My muscles have been starting to practice," he finally mumbled. "For labor."

Meryl jolted. Her hand drifted to Vash's bump again; if she wasn't imagining things, it was a bit firmer than it had been minutes ago. "W-well...are you okay? Is that normal?"

That little smile was back, not even close to reaching Vash's eyes. His face was turning strangely ashen. Waxy. "Yeah. Judy told me to expect it soon."

His fingertips were quivering so hard, Meryl could hear the glassy metal of his prosthetic clicking together. He seemed to notice; he clenched his fists, and it stopped.

"Sorry. It just...um..." he trailed off, panting minutely and swallowing, pulling at his shirt collar.

Suddenly, it clicked, and Meryl quickly slipped her hand into Vash's, lacing her fingers between his longer ones. His palm was slick with sweat. "Stop apologizing and take a few deep breaths. Focus on my hand."

He drew in a slow, thin inhale that cracked on the way out. Tears flooded his eyes.

Meryl lurched to her feet, keeping hold of his hand, and slid her arm around his neck. He turned toward her and buried his cheek in her chest, breathing in short bursts through his nose. There was so much fear laced into his body. Meryl could feel his thick shoulder muscles vibrating, held painfully rigid.

She craned her neck down to nudge a kiss onto his temple. "You're okay. You're not there anymore," she whispered, rocking him.

He answered with a high, choked "mhmm", nodding stiffly into her shirt.

Across the geodome, Wolfwood looked their way and straightened to his feet, his head cocked in a silent what's going on?

Meryl shook her head, but gave a thumbs up. He's okay.

She saw Wolfwood relax, then gesture to one of the bagged tree saplings and say something to Milly, probably to keep her from looking over at Vash and fretting.

By the time Vash was able to calm down, embarrassment was rolling off of him in near-visible waves. As Meryl pulled away, he covered his eyes with his prosthetic hand.

"That's so pathetic," he laughed softly, barely audible. Unfortunately for him, Meryl had excellent hearing.

"It is not." She sat back down and rested her hand on his knee. "There's nothing pathetic about your brain reacting negatively to something that brings back memories of trauma, Vash. Anyone else would be having a few panic attacks, too, if they'd been through what you have."

Vash let out a thin breath. "I doubt that." 

"That's okay. You can doubt it." Meryl shrugged. "But it doesn't make it any less true."

He didn't respond to that, because of course he didn't. But Meryl didn't begrudge him. He'd been alive for so long. His way of thinking was deeply ingrained. 

That was fine. She would do her best to change his mind, little by little. 

She smoothed her palm over the side of Vash's belly when she saw his breath hitch from a baby kick. 

"I admire you, honestly. Even though you're justifiably afraid, you still chose to carry these babies because you love them and wanted them. That's the most courageous, selfless thing I've ever seen someone do." Taking his face in her hands again, she brought him down to touch a kiss to the corner of his downturned lips. "Go easier on yourself, will you?" she pleaded.

A miserable line divided Vash's forehead between his brows. "I don't think I know how." He suddenly seemed every bit of his hundred and fifty-three years, eroded down by time and stress and too much loss.

Pity tugged at Meryl's throat.

Blinking back tears, she looped her arms around Vash's chest, feeling his flesh hand press at the small of her back.

"Then we'll do it for you," she whispered.

She felt him shudder, and his nose tucked into her neck.

 

⁌

 

Once Vash limped over the ile marker of twenty-four weeks, measuring a ludicrous twelve weeks ahead of that at thirty-six, it was like time crystallized, sliding forward with the sort of maddening, glacial pace that he'd wished for weeks ago when every day was flying by fast enough to make him dizzy.

Yeah, well. He'd felt a hell of a lot better weeks ago, too. Be careful what you wish for.

In a mere handful of days, the babies would reach the point where they could be considered full term. He was still trying to wrap his brain around that. There were two actual, viable babies inside him that were almost ready to be born. How crazy. Almost unbelievable, considering his track record. The whole pregnancy had been unbelievable, really. A dream he wasn't so sure he wanted to wake up from.

Had it really been this easy all this time, and he'd just...been bad at it? Was it because of the addition of Wolfwood's DNA? Had it strengthened his faulty uterus somehow? Upped the babies' chances of survival? He didn't know. He probably never would.

All he knew was that he was grateful for their continued health.

His little girl was the larger of the twins at four and a half pounds, with her brother trailing behind her at just under four, and Vash's back felt every single blessed ounce of it. He was carrying around eight and a half collective pounds from the babies alone, plus around five pounds of uterine tissue, a couple of pounds for each placenta, and three-ish pounds of amniotic fluid on top of that.

No wonder he felt like a wrecking ball.

It was surreal and almost startling to see his pregnant self in the candid photographs Meryl often snapped with her camera and Milly eagerly snatched up to add to the collection on the bulletin board. Despite being pretty small for carrying twins, he could still hardly believe he had such a substantial baby bump. Sometimes, it was a little hard to reconcile his current appearance with the lean-muscled razor's edge he knew his body had been honed to just twenty-four weeks ago, but that was okay. He cherished his pregnant belly, no matter how uncomfortable he ended up.

The first time, he hadn't shown at all. Not even the slightest bump, which was why he had genuinely thought he was about to die when the contractions started getting too severe to label as simple stomach cramps. His belly had been so perfectly flat and toned and unchanged that when he had pushed that huge, blood-smeared seed pod out of his body and the reality of what had just happened to him had torn through his brain like a bullet to the head, the shock had been so mind-shattering that he had simultaneously ruptured both eardrums and shredded his vocal folds to ribbons of gore with the sheer, horrified power of his screaming.

He couldn't talk for two days afterward.

With both subsequent singleton seed pods after that, his lower stomach had poked out slightly more, betraying his condition. Apparently, that sometimes happened with human moms, too; the uterus wouldn't quite shrink back down to its original, pre-baby size, so the second baby could show more than the first, and the third more than the second, etcetera. Thankfully, both tiny bumps had been easy to pass off as "one too many donuts" or something equally inane to any less-than-tactful acquaintances that had looked a little too closely.

The last time, with the...the first set of twins, it had been much, much worse on his mental state that he had actually looked pregnant by the time the stillborn Plants came. That baby bump had felt like a mockery, cruelly teasing him with something he could never attain because he was fundamentally broken.

He hadn't looked in a mirror the entire time. He just...couldn't bring himself to.

Ergo, when he had gazed upon the first ultrasound of his current pregnancy, he'd been genuinely worried. What if he felt that same, heartbroken avoidance toward this new baby bump every time he looked at it? What if all he would be able to see in his growing stomach was the eternally sleeping face of his firstborn, her face deathly grey and her barely-developed eyelids clung together by blackened, bloody rot?

But, for once, his fears had been proven entirely wrong. Every time he looked down and his view of his feet was obscured by the veritable globe his belly had become, he felt...warm and proud. Accomplished. It filled him with joy to see the proof that he'd persevered through so much hardship to this very moment, no more than fourteen days away from meeting not only a daughter, but also a son. His first son.

Did he still think about those children he had buried? Of course. They crossed his mind often, and they always would. He would forever wonder what his life would've looked like if he'd been able to carry them full term and safely deliver them into this world. It could've done mankind untold amounts of good if he could've given birth to brand new Plants.

But, he tried his best not to dwell on the past. The baby boy and girl currently nestled so carefully and comfortably in the flawed cradle of his body, the younger siblings of those sweet daughters he'd lost, were his current priority. They needed him here in the present. For them, he had to be strong.

Well, as strong as he could be with the weight of the world sitting in the bowl of his pelvis. These kids were heavy.

Bless Wolfwood's skillful hands and his quiet willingness to rub Vash's back whenever he needed it. He barely ever even had to ask; if he so much as sighed when he sat down, which was just a given these days with how he huffed and puffed and grunted like a geriatric when he moved, Wolfwood would drift over to him and settle his hands on Vash's shoulders, rubbing gently with his thumbs and asking where it hurt the most.

He was just so good. Vash ached with love for him. Those strong hands were going to be a massive help during labor again. 

...ah. Labor. Vash's least favorite subject to think about.

No matter how much he told himself he'd done this five times already and that he would be fine, it was no use. Every time it crossed his mind that he was getting closer and closer to labor day, it left him feeling winded and buzzy in the head, kicking his heart rate upward and sapping the moisture from his mouth.

If the mere thought of having the babies made him feel like fainting dead away, he wasn't sure how he was ever going to actually get through it. False contractions were already enough to give him mini panic attacks; with the onset of every contraction, the chilly feeling of impending unconsciousness would pour down the back of his neck and shoulders, and he would have to close his eyes and grip someone's hand to ground himself in the here and now. Sometimes he even had to sit down so he wouldn't fall down.

He'd never had Braxton Hicks before, but God, did he ever despise them.

The cramps weren't even all that painful, just stiff and uncomfortable, but the all-too-familiar sensation of them dredged up unwanted memories.

The terror and isolation of that first labor and delivery would probably never leave him. That blood-smeared, rusty bathtub and the smell of his own sweat and bile still haunted his dreams. He would never forget stumbling dead-eyed and slush-brained and weak in the knees down the creaky staircase of that abandoned house, leaving a trail of crimson spatters and footprints on the aged, dusty wood as he held onto the wall for dear life with one hand and cradled the peaceful little corpse of the daughter he hadn't known existed against his chest with the other. His poor sweet baby had to be buried in the lonely, unforgiving sands and left there all alone.

At least, until her twin sisters came to rest beside her over a century later.

He was so weak. It had been a hundred and thirty-two years, and he still hadn't moved past it.

(Maybe he would've had a fighting chance if it hadn't kept fucking happening.) 

Meryl had told him it was perfectly normal to be scared of giving birth again after the trauma he'd been through. Vash wasn't so sure he wasn't just being a coward about the whole thing. So cowardly that he had nearly put his son and daughter in harm's way for the sake of his own comfort.

When Judith had mentioned a surgical birth offhand one day, he had barely even considered the consequences. His brain had latched onto the idea as Gospel truth, and his heart had stubbornly set on getting the babies removed from his body by Judith's capable hands.

Now that he knew just how dangerous it would be for them, he was sickened by how selfish he had been.

He'd made up his mind. No matter how awful it would be, he would endure it. He'd been through natural birth before. He could do it again.

Besides, when compared to the hellish prison that had been that hernia surgery, in which he'd felt every single millimeter of skin and muscle and tissue that scalpel had sliced through like he was a live test subject on a vivisection table and was still dealing with lingering night terrors from it, he could almost convince himself that vaginal birth would be more tolerable than a surgical one, at least on the pain scale.

..."Vaginal." That word always gave him a bit of pause. He wasn't even sure if the Fleshy Flower of Lovecraftian Horrors between his legs could be classified as such, especially not since the slick, girthy appendage hidden in the sheath at its apex that often burst out uninvited after he'd had an orgasm was unquestionably penis-adjacent, but moot. He'd never cared enough to label his genitalia. Most often, he just tried not to think about them, the same way he refused to think about the shallow, tender swell of tissue beneath his single remaining nipple that he'd noticed a few weeks ago. He'd smoothly scooped the implications from his mind like a scalpel clearing cancer, plopping it in a distant petri dish to be dealt with at a later time.

He was pretty good at not thinking. Pregnancy brain only made it easier.

Thankfully, the others were always there for him to hold onto during the moments of panic that so many things being this late in pregnancy brought on. With Meryl's petite fingers around his wrists and Wolfwood's hands on his shoulders and Milly's sweet voice in his ear, he always managed to get through his false contractions to the other side, even if he ended up sweaty and nauseated afterwards. He hadn't up and died yet.

Unlike the others, though, he wasn't blindly optimistic. He knew just how badly that panic boded for the actual birth.

But, well. He supposed he would cross that bridge when he came to it. Until then, all he could do was wait. And wait, and wait, and wait. Lord, there was so much waiting involved in pregnancy, just sitting around and constantly snacking and staying off his feet like a good little baby incubator.

He was tired of waiting. He wanted to hold his son and daughter.

But, they needed to keep on growing, so...fine.

He would wait as long as they needed.

 

⁌

 

Halfway through the twenty-fourth week, on a sleepy Sunday afternoon, Judith gave Vash a thorough checkup and a plethora of tests.

Once the great indignity of having his nonexistent-as-of-yet dilation checked was mercifully over, Judith strapped three separate monitors around his belly and told him to settle in; they had to see how the babies' hearts responded to stimulus, movement, and, most importantly, his infrequent Braxton Hicks contractions.

Vash couldn't help but feel like a trussed-up thomas ready to be tossed in the oven and baked for a holiday meal, but he obediently got as comfortable as he feasibly could. He drummed his fingers on his chest as Judith checked the babies' baseline heart rates and his amniotic fluid levels, grabbing a few deep breaths every now and then in between dozing. It was getting awfully hard to sleep for long lately since baby girl was constantly crammed against his bladder, so he had to sleep when he felt like sleeping.

Naturally, because the babies had Wolfwood blood in their veins, they chose today to decide to be ornery.

"If you didn't need them to move, they'd be kicking the crap out of me," Vash mumbled drowsily after an hour of waiting and five bathroom trips had gone by with only one slight squirm from his daughter and none from his snoozing son. His stomach growled, and he shifted and cleared his throat. Judith chuckled from a bit further down the bed, where she'd pulled up a chair and was pretending to do paperwork while she worked a crossword puzzle.

"Watched pots never boil," Milly sighed, high and soft and only half awake, hugging the pillow she was curled up with in the arm chair next to the bed.

Judith's pencil skritched on her paper. "That's alright. We just caught them at nap time, that's all." She glanced up at Vash. "Still feeling alright? Any contractions?"

Vash shook his head. "Nothing since this morning when I got out of bed, and it was a really mild one."

A deadpan look. "That question had two parts."

He sighed. Fiddled with his earring. "...I feel fine," he finally settled on. "Just...tired. Huge. Hungry."

Judith's wrinkled hand patted his leg. "That's not the worst you could feel, all things considered, so I'm glad." She looked amused. "And not to worry. Your doting suitors will be back soon enough with a snack."

"It might be more than a snack." Vash rolled his eyes. "I made the mistake of mentioning to them earlier that an omelet sounded tasty. They've probably bullied the cooks out of their own kitchen by now and are yelling at each other over the proper way to crack an egg."

"Young love," Judith sighed, patting her heart. "Makes this old woman misty-eyed."

Vash snorted, then sobered. "It's kinda hard to manage these days. The hunger, I mean." He twisted a bicolored lock of his hair around his flesh and bone finger, feeling the difference in texture. The black hair was much more coarse, the blond feathery and light. "I either feel so full it makes me nauseous, or I feel like I haven't eaten in months. There's no in between."

He didn't love the sheen of almost-pity in Judith's eyes, but he knew it was because she cared about him. She'd been looking at him like that for basically his whole life.

"I know, honey. Your stomach is just really compressed right now, so it can't hold a lot at once. Just keep grazing on little meals throughout the day like you have been. The babies need a steady stream of calories to keep growing—healthy calories," she added with a knowing tilt of her eyebrow. Vash squared his shoulders and avoided her eyes, warmth pressing at his face and neck. "I would rather they get as big as they can before they get here."

As much as the thought of the small boulders in his stomach getting even bigger kinda made Vash want to lie on the floor and descend into a fit of hysterics, he had to agree with her. The babies' little lungs needed to be as developed as they could possibly be before they came into the world. Even though Vash's fundal height was measuring just ahead of thirty-seven weeks now, which was about as big as a full-term singleton pregnancy, the size of his bump was extremely deceptive. His poor baby son was still struggling to reach the four pound mark, a whole half pound lighter than his sister. That was tiny, underdeveloped enough to have a host of significant health crises if they were to be born right now. They definitely needed to stay in utero as long as possible.

The whole birth was already going to be iffy, since children between a human and an Independent had never been conceived before. For that matter, Vash had no idea how he himself had behaved as a newborn, how far along his biological Plant mother had been when she'd given birth, if he or Nai had faced any complications, etcetera. The few anecdotes Rem had told Vash of his and Nai's frighteningly short infancy were all he had to go on for reference.

Not for the last time, he wished she were here.

Judith nudged his leg. "Double dollar for your thoughts," she said softly.

Vash glanced at Milly, who had been awfully quiet, but her freckled cheek was squished up on the pillow, her breathing deep and peaceful.

"I tried to tell Nick and Meryl that I might need to have the babies alone," he whispered, avoiding what he'd actually been thinking about. "Because it would be safer for them. But. Well."

A twist of displeasure pursed Judith's lips, but it was more sad than anything. "You're joking."

A wave of dread crested and fell in Vash's stomach.

Ever perceptive, Judith rose from her chair. Her fingers slipped through Vash's hair, grasping gently as they went, soothing. Vash's eyes smarted.

"I busted my own eardrums, Judy," he breathed, hating the plaintive way his voice warbled. He swiped at his eyes to no avail; tears leaked down his temples. He was so sick of crying. "I could give them permanent hearing damage. They don't heal like I do."

Not even Wolfwood did, anymore. Not without his vials.

"They know the risks. They're not children." Judith's eyes were keen, sorrowful but firm. "Please tell me they tore you a new one."

Vash sniffled and sighed, accepting the tissue Judith pressed into his hand and dabbing his nose and eyes. "Nick threatened to punch me."

"Of course he did, Vash," Judith said with beseeching exasperation so quiet and intense that Vash had to resist the urge to flinch. "These aren't just your own children you'll be giving birth to this time. Nicholas helped you conceive these babies, and Meryl is their godmother. Of course they want to be there for you when you have them." She shook her head slightly; the disapproval in her gaze was scorching. "I can't tell you what to do. You're damn well old enough to make your own decisions by now. But please, try to understand that forcing them to stay away would be much, much worse on them than anything you could ever do in labor."

"I just—"

Vash cut off with a sharp little intake of breath. The inklings of a contraction burned low in his uterine muscles and made him freeze like a trapped animal. Thankfully, Judith's firm pat and rub to his shoulder quickly reminded him where he was, and he made himself close his eyes and breathe, even if it felt like he was trying to suck air through a straw. His foot unconsciously bounced on the mattress. The sounds of Judith's pencil scratching down the readings from the monitors and the soft, interlocking wubwubs of the twins' hearts grounded him, kept him from spiraling.

Luckily, it wasn't a bad one. When it was over, the babies stretched one after the other. While Vash knew they were just moving because they'd been woken up by their cozy home tightening around them, it still felt like an assurance, and he clung to it gratefully. We're alive, it's okay.

"They rebounded from that beautifully. That's great." Judith stuck her pencil behind her ear and appeared to be about to say more, but instead, she sucked her lips inward. Vash frowned in confusion. When he followed her gaze, he stiffened. 

Milly was hugging her knees to her chest, looking down at the floor.

"You really think you have to have the babies alone?"

Judith, the absolute traitor, slipped out of the room. Vash resisted the urge to run after her, but really, that wasn't physically possible anymore. Instead, he pinned Milly with a measured stare.

"You weren't asleep." It came out much more accusatory than he'd intended, but he was a little pissed off. It wasn't like Milly to feign sleep so she could eavesdrop.

Milly's fingers tightened around the brawny muscle of her upper arm. "I didn't mean to listen. Honest, I didn't." When her eyes cut sideways to look at him, he was taken aback by how icy they were. "But, with all due respect, Mr. Vash, I believe you're being quite stupid."

"Oh, get in line," he snapped irritably.

Instantly, he was so horrified at himself that he felt a bit nauseated. He'd never snapped at Milly before.

Milly unfolded herself with an angry jerk, gripping the chair arm so hard that something within it gave an ominous squeak.

"You've been through this enough times on your own!" She exclaimed. "You should never have to have a baby all alone ever again!"

Vash's heart panged like she'd hooked her fingers into the grate on his chest and given it a hard yank.

He pushed himself to a sitting position with both arms, frowning to cover his shock. "M-Milly, what are you—"

"Oh, stop it. I might not be the brightest bulb on the porch sometimes, but I wasn't born yesterday." Milly crossed her arms. Her expression was complicated, sad and hurt and worried. "I've overheard and pieced together enough to know that this isn't the first time you've been in a family way, or at least something awful close to it. You all really aren't as secretive as you think you are."

It felt like Vash had swallowed a mouthful of molten rock. His pulse thudded in his ears, quick and hard.

"We weren't trying to, I-I don't know, exclude you," he began faintly, but Milly cut him off in a rare show of selfishness.

"That's not the point I'm trying to make. My point is, labor and childbirth are really, really hard, and it's something no one should ever have to go through alone. Not even..." Her eyes puddled up with tears, and she slowly breathed in. "Not even a Plant who can walk around outside a bulb and thinks he doesn't deserve anything good."

Vash's lips went numb. His fingertips tingled. The air he breathed felt thicker than blood.

"How long have you known?" was all he could rasp, and despite his best efforts, his voice quivered.

Milly stood up without a word, and Vash had to dig crescents into his palm with his fingernails to keep from cowering away in fear. He knew deep down that Milly would never hate him for what he was, that he could trust her just as much as he did Meryl and Wolfwood, and yet still, an ugly, bloodied little scrap of his heart remembered being snarled at with contempt and threatened with pitchforks and stoned with sharp rocks countless times across his long life. Those wounds had never scabbed over, and they demanded that he be afraid.

But all Milly did was sit down on the bed and scoop him into a tight embrace.

Blood thundered through Vash's veins. On reflex, he didn't breathe. But Milly's fingers were heartbreakingly gentle in his hair, as far away from ill intent as humanly possible. Slowly, slowly, he began to relax. His arms shook as he wrapped them around Milly and buried his face in her shoulder.

"Oh, Mr. Vash," Milly whispered, infinitely sad.

The sides of Vash's throat clung together like glue when he swallowed.

When Milly leaned back, the tears on her cheeks slid between Vash's ribs like a knife.

"You know, Uncle Rob didn't have any living children," she murmured, wiping her face on her sleeve.

Vash closed his eyes in grief, both at the reminder of Roberto and the foreboding emphasis on the word living.

"But he did have me. I was always his favorite of us kids, and before...well, when I was little, we were inseparable. After he died, someone from Bernardelli showed up on our doorstep with a box full of stuff from his desk. He had left it all to me, including his notebook that had been recovered from his and Miss Meryl's vehicle." She gave Vash a faint smile. "Take a wild guess who he'd written pages and pages of notes about."

Vash's guts roiled, eaten up with guilt.

"The careless typhoon that got him killed?" He spat, shaking.

"No!" Milly's glare of reproach soundly doused the coals of self-loathing threatening to ignite inside him. "He wrote about a silly blond beanpole with a beauty mark under his left eye, a big dumb idiot with a heart twice his size who would jump in front of a Sandsteamer without a second thought if it meant saving someone else's life. A Plant man that glowed like moonlight and thought he didn't deserve to cry." Her expression went watery and she shook her head, bewildered and saddened. "Everyone deserves to cry, Mr. Vash."

And to eat, and to laugh, Wolfwood's voice chimed in from years ago.

Vash looked down at his lap through swimming vision. Or, well. What was left of his lap.

Milly's hands slipped underneath his own and tenderly held them, her thumb tracing over his gunmetal prosthetic fingers with quiet fascination. "I've known who you were since before I even met you. And if Uncle Rob ended up trusting you and caring about you, that's more than good enough for me." She leaned down into his field of vision. A pleading wrinkle marred her forehead, the only wrinkle on her smooth, sun-kissed face.

She was so young. So damn naive. Too trusting. And yet, the trust Vash saw in her eyes squeezed around his heart, warm and insistent, and he was too weak, too world-weary to resist it. It was such an agonizing dichotomy between guilt and relief every time he let himself be wrapped in the earnest comfort that humans had to offer. If there was any trace of Nai left somewhere out there, he was surely rolling his eyes in disgust.

"I don't care if you're different. I'm not afraid of what you are," Milly whispered, her silvery blue eyes welling up with fresh tears. "I love you for who you are, and who you are is a very dear friend of mine."

Vash's heart fractured up the middle. "You don't know what I'm capable of, Milly. I've—"

"I. Don't. Care," she raised her voice, her words cracking. "Whatever you did in the past, I don't care. I know you now, and you wouldn't hurt me, or Miss Meryl, or Mr. Wolfwood, or anyone else."

I've done more than just hurt people.

"Maybe not on purpose," he hedged.

Milly gave him a flat look. "Mr. Vash, I've seen you lay on your stomach in the dust and beg a feral cat underneath a house to let you pet it. For nearly an hour. You're not exactly the most frightening person I've ever met."

"Hey, me and that cat were best friends by the end of the day!"

"Ugh, not the point! Goodness, you're good at trying to change the subject." Milly shook her finger at him, disgruntled. "Honestly, your need to deprive yourself of anything good is confusing and infuriating. If you weren't so nice, I would knock you upside the head to jar some sense into your spiky brain!"

Leave it to Milly to make more of a fuss over how he treated himself than the danger he posed to everyone around him.

All compulsion to argue left Vash along with the sigh that emptied his lungs. "I've been told that a few hundred thousand times in my life."

"Well, now it's a few hundred thousand and one." Milly leaned forward, peering at him. "So, you're going to let Miss Meryl and Mr. Wolfwood be there to support you while you have your babies, yes?"

"Yeah, yeah," Vash whined, shrinking. "They've already verbally bludgeoned me into submission. I don't like this, you're usually on my side. This is mutiny."

"Deal with it. If someone is being foolish, I can't help but tell them. Especially when they're a friend. " She smiled with the kind of threatening cheerfulness only Milly Thompson could pull off. "It's my duty as a reporter to be honest, you see."

Vash curled his lip. "I think Meryl is rubbing off on you."

Milly beamed. "That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me."

Vash couldn't help but huff and smile along with her, unable to keep up his charade of faux irritation. "Thanks."

Her head tilted like an inquisitive puppy. "For what?"

"For not...you know." Vash gently nudged his son's poky little toes away from his rib. "You've said before that your family is a lot to handle, but I think we're a lot to handle. This is all pretty bizarre. I mean, you said it yourself: I'm a Plant outside of a bulb. And I'm reproducing with a human. And I used to be a wanted outlaw."

Milly seemed to contemplate his words for a moment, but ultimately shrugged. "I dunno what you want, Mr. Vash. Am I supposed to be scared of you?"

You would be foolish not to.

Vash batted away the thought that sounded a little too much like Nai. "People are. Sometimes."

Milly looked deeply offended on his behalf. "Well, people are stupid and wrong."

He wasn't sure she would be saying that if she'd seen as much of his otherness as some humans had, but he didn't continue harping. Milly was more stubborn than an unbroken bull thomas; it wasn't like he was going to change her mind.

If there was a teensy part of Vash that was glad and grateful, he buried it deep for now, slumping over his belly and scrubbing his face with one hand.

"Listen, I...I'm sorry I snapped at you, Mil. I don't mean to be so grumpy, least of all with you."

Milly's smile was tender and easy. She wrapped Vash in another warm hug, with just the right amounts of tight and gentle. Strands of her soft hair brushed his cheek, and he nestled his nose in her shoulder, slowly inhaling her delicate scent of clean soap and a hint of oolong tea, just indulging in the sincere affection of this precious human.

"I forgive you." The simple words were punctuated by a sisterly peck to the side of Vash's head. One of those involuntary chirpy noises fluttered deep in his throat, but he was too soothed to feel ashamed.

Apparently, that noise excited the babies; there was a startled wiggle and stretch near Vash's ribs that made his breath catch, then a vindictive little barrage of squirming lower down that earned some grumpy retaliatory kicks. As Milly leaned back with a questioning raise of her brows, Vash smiled, gently rubbing his belly with both hands to try to get both babies to calm down.

"They're just scrapping. I'm alright." He motioned for Milly to feel, and the babies gave her a good show, tossing and turning under her palm. "Judy will be happy to finally get some consistent readings."

Milly's eyes crinkled at the corners. "Hard to believe they'll be here in just a few weeks, huh."

"Mhm. Pretty wild to think about." Vash rubbed the very tip of his middle finger over a lump that felt like a knee. Or an elbow. "Never thought I would be here."

His eyelids lowered with his adoring smile. Despite the fact that his scars ached and pulsed with varying intensity every time the babies moved, his heart couldn't help but melt like ice cream in the desert sunshine whenever he felt it. He molded his palm over the wide, shallow protrusion on his side that he was pretty sure was his son's tiny head, skating the side of his thumb over the edge of an old surgical wound it was stretching.

"Mr. Vash?"

He looked up. Milly was gazing at him with such genuine, heartfelt fondness that his throat gave a painful tug.

"You're gonna be a really good mama."

Vash's heart cramped sharply, and he was dizzied by how quickly tears sprang to his eyes and slipped down his cheeks. He yanked the neck of his shirt up to cover his face, digging the fabric into his streaming eyes with the heels of his hands.

"Oh, I'm sorry." He felt Milly pat his shoulder. "I didn't mean to make you cry."

"Milly-hy-hyyy," he blubbered, not entirely faking it. He sucked a shuddering sniffle in, eeking the rest of the words out. "You can't just say stuff like that without warning me, I'm hormonal enough already!"

He heard Milly let out a mischievous little "hehe" as she dropped back into her chair with a poff. "Just being truthful!"

"Stuff like what?"

Vash pulled his shirt down and wiped his cheeks; Meryl and Wolfwood were walking up to the bed, each bearing two plates of fluffy-looking omelets.

"Secrets," Milly chirped. Wolfwood handed one plate to her, and she gasped in delight. "Thank you!"

"Ain't a big deal. Figured we might as well make them for everyone since it's about lunchtime," Wolfwood said as he sat down at the end of the bed and raised a brow at Vash. "Why you cryin', blondie?"

"Erm...haha." Vash flashed his best disarming smile, shrugging. "Just preggo things, you know how it is."

Wolfwood rolled his eyes, unconvinced, but was apparently too hungry to be pushy, because he started eating without another word. Phew.

Vash swooned, mouth watering, as Meryl handed him a plate and a fork. "Oh, Meryl, light of my life, my pookie, my honey butter biscuit—" he simpered, leaning sideways to drape himself against her.

"If you ever call me 'pookie' again, I'll shiv you," Meryl said without missing a beat as she tucked into her own omelet without bothering to sit, one sassy hip cocked to the side. Vash threw his head back and burst into unapologetic laughter, pressing his free hand into his belly when the babies jerked in response and wheezing out little ow's around his chortles.

"You better be callin' me pookie, I'm the one who made the damn things," Wolfwood groused around a mouthful. "All shortcake did was sit on the counter top with her legs crossed like a spoiled little princess and boss me around."

Meryl glowered at him and kicked his shin. "I kept you from putting baking soda instead of salt in the eggs, shut your trap!"

Wolfwood turned scarlet. "I'm sorry, how is it my fault that some jackoff on this fuckin' ship stored baking soda in a shaker?"

Vash made eye contact with Milly, snickering around his bite of perfect, fluffy eggs when she made a conceding gesture with her palm upturned and her eyes closed, as if to say, okay, maybe you guys are a little bit of a lot.

But he had to admit, he wouldn't have it any other way.

 

⁌

 

The closer Vash crept to his due date, the less like himself he acted.

Ordinarily, it would've made Wolfwood eighty different kinds of nervous with what had happened last time Vash "wasn't himself", but this wasn't anything like that whole hernia business. Vash wasn't shriveling like a raisin right before their eyes. He was just...irritable. Snappy in a way that would've normally dissolved him into a puddle of guilty tears.

Not that it bothered Wolfwood much. He wasn't made of sugar, and a few cranky words here and there weren't going to fatally wound his feelings. He figured Vash was entitled to be a bit tetchy when the simple act of sitting up in bed made him feel like he couldn't breathe, but...still. It was off-putting to see him so quick-tempered when he'd always been so easygoing.

Even though Judith had officially taken him off bed rest and gave him the go-ahead to get up and move around again, Vash never quite bounced back from the surgery like Wolfwood had expected him to. It seemed like the babies' exponential growth had finally caught up with him, and he was finding it difficult to cope.

Between the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth week, the babies somehow found it in themselves to gain over half a pound each. Judith just about threw a party right there in the infirmary. Vash was thrilled in principle; not so much in body. The fact that he was hiding two babies in that fairly standard-sized pregnant belly still threw Wolfwood for a loop sometimes, but even if Vash wasn't massive, he'd still gotten pretty damn big. Long gone were the days of skin-tight leather shirts and belt-wrapped pants, that was for damn sure. Vash lived in huge t-shirts that Meryl could've used for tents and sweatpants with roomy elastic waistbands, the only bottoms that would accommodate the bump anymore; the pants had been gifts from a couple of residents on Ship Three who were seamstresses, and though Vash had seemed a little embarrassed to need them, the crew members had been delighted to help him out.

At this point, Wolfwood was just grateful for anything that made Vash even a tiny bit more comfortable, because there was never a time when he wasn't in a fairly moderate level of pain now. Not quite as severely as when his intestine had been crammed through the muscle wall of his side, granted, but Wolfwood saw Vash's squeezed-shut eyes and bitten-back groans when he so much as got up to use the toilet, the miserable hand he pressed deeply into his lower back as he shuffled along. It made all three of them antsy, which of course rubbed Vash's nerves the wrong way even more.

"Knock it off, I'm fine," Vash grouched for probably the tenth time that day already, sinking back down onto the bed as Meryl and Milly flanked him with their hands at his elbows. After hanging his head, probably to hide the pain on his face if Wolfwood had to guess, he sucked an uneven breath in before continuing. "You don't have to freak out every time I get up to pee. I'm not actually going to pop, you know."

Meryl sat down next to him, tucking under his arm to snuggle in. "Sorry," she mumbled, burying her face in his side. "Just don't like seeing you hurt."

Vash's scowl faded into something sadder. He hugged her closer. "I know. I'm okay, though. Promise."

Maybe it would've been more convincing if his voice wasn't thin and husky with lack of sleep.

Milly sat on his other side, picking up his prosthetic hand; his only protest was a sigh. He had let it slip earlier that his port was giving him fits today (which was probably another reason for his shitty mood), and like she often did, Milly gently massaged the smooth black palm and fingers to activate the heat and pressure sensors within so that hopefully his brain could be fooled into believing his flesh and bone arm was still there and calm the phantom pain down. He always said it helped, but you never could tell with Vash. He could've been fibbing to save Milly's feelings.

"Surely you're all bored to death by now." Vash rested a flushed cheek on Milly's shoulder. "I can't imagine this is the most thrilling use of your time."

"Ohhh, noooo, we get to spend time with you and the babies," came Meryl's muffled voice. "However shall we survive."

"What a horrible fate!" Milly wailed softly.

"He's clearly coercin' us into it somehow," Wolfwood declared, rising from his seat at the desk where he'd been reading the latest letter from the Hopeland kids and tacking it onto the bulletin board. "Some kinda infernal Plant mind control, that. You girls are in a heap of danger."

Vash rolled his eyes and closed them, scoffing much more openly than he normally would've, but a reluctant thread of a smile still tugged at one corner of his mouth.

Meryl hummed out a sing-song laugh. "Little man knows his mama's being ridiculous. I feel him kicking."

"Oh, I do, too," Vash grumbled. "I'm almost glad he's running out of room, maybe it'll stop him from kneeing me in the ribs."

"That reminds me...Mr. Vash?"

"Yeah?"

Milly's eyes were thoughtful, still focused on her gentle ministrations. "We've been calling you 'mama' for weeks now. Is that what you wanna be called?"

Vash's eyes pointed at the ceiling. His forehead wrinkled a few times, his upper lip curling in silent musing.

"I don't know," he admitted. "I can't decide if I dislike it or not. 'Dad' doesn't feel right..."

"Kinda figured I would be dad," Wolfwood said as he knelt down in front of Vash, taking his unoccupied hand. The way Vash's eyes shimmered was mesmerizing and encouraging.

"Yeah," he whispered, squeezing Wolfwood's hand. "You're dad for sure."

"What about 'papa'?" Milly offered.

Vash's face scrunched. "Definitely not. No offense."

"None taken."

"Technically speaking, you are their mother." Meryl rested her arm across the shelf of Vash's middle. "But, if 'mom' or 'mama' makes you uncomfortable, you can be called whatever you want."

Vash aimed a concerned, almost nervous look down at her. "You don't wanna be called mama?"

Meryl's brows upturned. "Vash...I'm not the one carrying them, I...it wouldn't be right of me to—"

"Sure it would," he argued.

Meryl's eyes averted. Wolfwood studied her round face, the gentle slant of her eyes. Her dark hair, so inky black it was almost blue.

"What about 'mama' in a different language?" he found himself asking.

Meryl frowned, thrown off, but then her face went blank and she brought her finger to her chin. "Wait, that's not actually a bad idea. My ancestors were from Old Earth Asia before the Great Fall, so, hold on. Let me see if I can dredge up the stuff I learned in my language courses." She rubbed her temple, tapped her heel on the bed. "Mostly China and Japan, my mom said...I think it would be different in those languages. Wait, no, in Chinese it's just 'mama'. In Japanese, it's...there are a few to choose from. The simplest one would probably be 'kaachan.' Or 'kaasan,' but 'kaachan' is used by little kids mostly. It's kind of like saying 'mama'."

"Look at Little Miss College Degree over here usin' her edumacation," Wolfwood sneered, but he couldn't hold back an impressed smile. Meryl glowed under the praise, hands clasped cutely in her lap. Wolfwood wanted to kiss her silly.

Vash, meanwhile, brightened like a pink and gold sunrise. "Kaachan..." he murmured, tenderly testing the word and letting go of Wolfwood's hand to drape his arm around Meryl's shoulders. "That's cute." He smooched the side of her head. "Like, that's really cute."

The peachy tint on Meryl's cheeks dealt a critical hit to Wolfwood's heart. "I-is it?"

"As a button," Wolfwood said very seriously.

"Perfect!" Milly declared with a decisive clap. "Now you can both be mama."

Wolfwood could tell Vash was a little relieved. He'd probably wanted to be called mama the whole time and had still tried to sacrifice the title so Meryl would have first pick. Classic Vash, selfless to a fault. But, he didn't goad him for it.

"I wouldn't be opposed, then." With a deep breath in and out, Vash rubbed over the swell of his belly with his flesh and blood hand. "It doesn't feel weird to think of them calling me mama. I dunno, is—do you guys think that's weird?"

"Nope."

"Of course not."

"It's adorable."

They all looked at Meryl, who crammed her blushing face under Vash's arm.

"Shuddup."

As Vash aimed an amused grin at Wolfwood, he couldn't help but return it. It had been days since Vash had smiled so genuinely. Even though the smile was lined with fatigue, it was still a sight for sore eyes.

Just as soon as the thought had crossed Wolfwood's mind, though, the smiled disappeared and Vash's face flashed a yellowish shade of pale, fingers tensing on his stomach.

"Contraction?" Wolfwood demanded.

Vash nodded without a word.

Immediately, Milly threaded her fingers through his prosthetic ones. Meryl lightly rubbed up and down his forearm. Wolfwood pressed his fingers against Vash's hardening side, quickly tossing his left arm out to raise his sleeve and expose his watch so he could time it.

As the time slowly climbed, Vash shifted forward on the bed, parting his knees further. He was panting shallowly, rocking minutely back and forth, hanging his head to one side.

Sweat beaded on Wolfwood's forehead as he watched the seconds tick by. This was the longest one Vash had ever had. His belly was rigid as a rock under Wolfwood's fingertips.

Vash's head lolled to the other side, his brow crumpled in misery. "Ohhhh, please, just end already," he begged, hips squirming.

Milly petted the knuckles of his prosthetic hand. "Braxton Hicks can be long sometimes. You should breathe deeper, Mr. Vash."

"It hurts to breathe, Milly!" He snapped waspishly, and Wolfwood turned his cringe inward to hide it. Vash would bludgeon himself to a bloody pulp over that as soon as this contraction was over. He never liked getting short with Milly.

But, Milly was unfazed. Growing up in a rambunctious house with as many siblings as she had would probably give anyone thick skin. "I know. I'm so sorry you don't feel good. Try, though? For me?"

And like the precious soul she was, Milly pressed Vash's prosthetic hand to her chest, right over her heart, and breathed with him, slowly, evenly. After a second of struggle, he managed to follow along.

By the time Vash slumped forward, damp with sweat and on the edge of hyperventilation, it had been nearly three minutes. Too slowly for comfort, Wolfwood felt Vash's uterine muscles begin to relax under his hand.

"You're okay. We're right here, sweetheart." Meryl gently fanned Vash's glistening face and neck with her open notebook as he wheezed for breath.

All he did was whimper in response, pushing his hair back with one hand and swallowing with what looked like great effort. His lips had lost some color, greenish-yellow smudges settling around his closed eyes.

Wolfwood ached for him. "Need somethin' to throw up in?"

Vash barely moved his head when he shook it. "Milly, can you keep talking?" His voice was miniscule and brittle, like he'd been socked in the stomach and couldn't catch his breath.

A rough, emotional sigh tried to escape Wolfwood, but he beat it back. Vash's brain was trying to throw him backward in time again. Milly hadn't been at New Moab, and she hadn't even been alive for the other seedlings. Her voice cemented Vash in the only time period she could possibly exist in: the present.

"Of course I can," she said, as sweet and guileless as ever. Without missing a beat, she launched into a hilarious tale about how she'd pestered her Uncle Terry into teaching her how to drive his pickup truck when she was only seven years old, and it had ended with the truck rammed into the side of the thomas coop and both of them kneeling on the floor in front of her mother in penance while she threatened them with her rolling pin. It was a ridiculous story, but most importantly, it was lighthearted and easy to listen to, and hopefully it distracted Vash from whatever shadowy thoughts were lurking through his pretty blond head.

Silently, the last dregs of professional suspicion Wolfwood had held for Milly dissipated like smoke on the wind. She was a good egg. Loving, patient. Genuinely compassionate.

"Aunt Milly," huh. Yeah. Sounded about right.

Minutes later, when the girls stepped out to fetch Vash some fresh water and a snack, Wolfwood caught Vash's eye after a couple of failed attempts.

"You're sure that wasn't the real deal?"

And Vash's faint "no, no, it wasn't" after a too-long pause was less than comforting.

Christsake, Wolfwood needed a cigarette.

 

⁌

 

In the wee hours of the next morning, Vash's heavy eyelids drifted open.

The glow of the moons from the window washed the room in silvery blue, creating a hazy halo around everything. Like a room full of steam after a blistering hot shower.

His half-lidded gaze slid around the room. There was...something. What was...

Something was...

The keypad to his door was on the wrong side.

A muggy chill skittered down his spine.

He then realized that he couldn't move or speak. His throat worked with effort. Alarm bubbled in the very back of his mind, but it was like he was under some kind of spell. His limbs disobeyed his commands, remaining still.

He looked downward. Still pregnant. He wasn't often pregnant in his dreams, so what was this? Sleep paralysis? He hadn't had that since he lived with Sheryl and Lina.

Something invisible touched his forehead. His insides twitched in shock, and if he'd been awake, he might have let out a yelp. But syrupy warmth flowed through him, bathing his nerve endings and instantly calming him down. He knew this feeling like the back of his hand; connection, resonance. He closed his eyes and relaxed into it, confused but unafraid.

What felt like several tiny pairs of hands grasped at his own, touching his arm, his stomach, his cheeks. How many were there? He tried to count.

A sharp kick in his belly stole his breath. At the same time, a multi-layered voice whispered something in his ear.

His eyes snapped open a second time, his sweaty chest heaving and his heart hammering away at its cage. His whole body felt numb, like a trapped limb with its circulation cut off.

He jerked his gaze to the door; the keypad was on the correct side this time. He went limp, pinching his eyes shut and swallowing the acidic taste of panic, though he didn't know why he'd panicked.

Everything was fine. Just a weird dream.

As he opened his eyes and drew in a deep, easy breath, he had to blink a couple more times to make sure he wasn't imagining the faint blue light coloring Wolfwood's bare shoulder blades in front of him. When several seconds passed and it didn't fade like the other bizarre little light shows the leftover dream juice in his brain sometimes put on when he first woke up, he shifted in bed, pushing the sheet down off of his arm and lifting his hand to check.

No markings there. He brought his palm closer, going a little cross-eyed but determining from the reflected light on his hand that some part of his face was definitely glowing. He let his hand fall to his pillow, frowning up at the wall over Wolfwood's sleeping head.

That was new. He toyed with the idea of going to the bathroom mirror to look, but wrinkled his nose at the thought. Getting out of bed was becoming an entire ordeal these days, one that wasn't worth it just to see markings on his face that he already knew were there.

But, as his unborn daughter took a lazy stretch that dug the back of her little head into his bladder like it was her comfy pillow, he decided it was most definitely worth it, after all.

After attaching his prosthetic with a mechanical series of whirrs and clicks and hissing through the usual millisecond of nerve pain zapping up through his shoulder, struggling through sitting up and sliding to the edge of the bed while breathing through the stabs that resulted in his hips and groin, and giving the usual assurance to half-awake, mumbling Wolfwood that he was just going to pee, Vash pushed himself to his feet and sought out the wall with one hand, pressing over his son's restless wriggling with the other. His sister had probably jabbed him with her feet; it was her favorite activity, like she knew it annoyed him. Both babies jerked in quick succession, as if they were tussling, and Vash smiled through a wince.

"Don't fight, please," he whispered to them.

Already acting like siblings.

As he waddled along, he peeked around the end of the bed at Meryl, curled up like a kitty cat in her blankets on her floor mattress and snoozing away. Unlike Wolfwood, Meryl slept like the dead once she actually managed to drift off, and it took poking her pretty hard to wake her. An involuntary smile pulled at Vash's lips. She looked so comfy and warm and cute with her hair fanned out like spilled ink on her pillow.

Gah, he loved her.

They switched up their sleeping arrangements pretty much every night now. Sometimes Meryl joined Vash in his bed, sometimes Wolfwood crawled onto Meryl's mattress with her, etcetera. Vash was grateful that Meryl often left her camera unattended and full of film; he was amassing quite the collection of photographs of them in various states of sweet, sleepy disarray.

He lumbered into the scant little half bath attached to his room, which was really no more than a toilet, a corner sink that even a dentist would be embarrassed of, and the world's dinkiest mirror, and slid the door shut behind himself. The struggle to fold his lanky frame down onto the woefully diminutive toilet had been a ridiculous enough spectacle even before he was pregnant. Now, needless to say, the process was less than graceful.

While he was sitting there, struggling to prop his eyelids open while he peed, a contraction suddenly clamped around his middle and squeezed him hard.

He stopped breathing from the force of it, and the back of his neck pickled with the sense of danger that always came with such intense pain. His hands gripped the sides of his belly, rigid under his fingertips, but he soon had to abandon that to grip his ulna in his right hand, hanging his head and trying not to hiccup in fear when he breathed in.

Fortunately, the contraction was a short one that didn't drag his mind into the abyss. Unfortunately, it was definitely a painful one, and he could feel the ominous inklings of nausea once it ended.

He let out a silent, shaky sigh of dread.

Once he'd cleaned up (and jeez, what a slimy mess), heaved himself up to his feet, and readjusted his boxers and pajama pants, he maneuvered his unwieldy form to kneel in front of the toilet, swallowing pooling saliva as he rested his elbow on the toilet seat and propped his forehead on the heel of his hand to wait.

At least he'd had plenty of practice in keeping this as noiseless as possible.

Emptying his stomach was surprisingly painless; just a rush of material leaving his body. After coughing shallowly into a bundle of toilet paper he tore off the roll, he spit into the toilet and flushed the mess and the paper, wiping away the sheen of cool sweat that has gathered on his forehead and neck. Shutting the toilet lid, he used it as leverage, slowly pushing himself to his feet with a hiss and standing there to get his bearings. He shoved the heel of his hand into his lower back to try and relieve the knot of tension that was growing there.

Once his head cleared enough to move, he turned to the sink. Even without looking in the mirror, he could see the glow his face was casting in the dark, cramped room, but he leaned down and took a look after he rinsed his mouth and washed his hands, anyway.

As soon as he looked in the mirror, he stifled a gasp and nearly reeled backwards, jump-scared by his own irises blazing a hot, saturated cyan back at him.

His startled blinking shuttered the uncanny glow for a half second at a time. Etchings of bioluminescent light decorated his sclera and the skin around his eyes, spreading up near his temples and across the bridge of his nose. His forehead creased as he dried his hands and rubbed two fingers over the figures on his nose.

What the hell...?

Alarm tried to rise up his throat; his markings didn't usually show up for no reason, and his eyes glowing so brightly was definitely out of the ordinary. But, it didn't seem like anything was wrong, necessarily. The patterns were a soft, healthy color. He felt fine and wasn't in any pain.

Maybe it was just...hormonal?

When he tried to pull the markings inward and hide them, they didn't budge. In fact, they just glowed even brighter, edging further toward white before returning to their gentle blue. He blinked, frowned, tried again, and only succeeded in giving himself a mild headache behind his eyes that quickly faded.

Yeah, no. Not normal at all.

With a sudden light bulb over his head, Vash straightened up and looked down at his belly, the hefty curve of it dimly illuminated by his eyes.

"Are you doing this?" He asked softly, rubbing his side.

After a few seconds of silence, the knot of a tiny foot rose and fell underneath his stretched t-shirt. He breathed a soft laugh from his nostrils, patting the spot and letting his hand skim down to cradle the underside of his bump.

Maybe so, then. If the babies could resonate with Dependent Plants, then it stood to reason they could resonate with Vash, too. They were probably just feeling curious, sending out inarticulate little pulses of energy that Vash's body was picking up on and responding to. It would make sense that he wouldn't be able to hide his markings, then; they were always out when he was communicating with one of his sisters.

His heart swelled with pride. The beans were getting so strong.

A sleepy mumble drifted from the bedroom. "Wht're they doin'?"

Ah, shit. Vash clenched his teeth and winced. He had forgotten how good Wolfwood's hearing was even when he was asleep. The toilet flushing had probably woken him up again.

Vash slid the door aside and shuffled back to bed, where Wolfwood was sprawled on his back, rubbing his eyes. As he squinted up at Vash, he did a double take and blinked hard.

"Am I dreamin'?" he whispered warily.

"Nope." Vash rubbed his temple, feeling the comforting warmth from his patterns buzz his fingertips, then shrugged. "I can't turn it off."

Wolfwood sat up, his brow wrinkling. "Is that normal?"

"Uh...no. Not really." After checking on Meryl—still conked out—Vash lowered himself down onto the bed, blowing out a sigh and pushing his thumb knuckle into his sore tailbone with a tired scowl. His pelvic floor literally felt bruised; he could feel the nerves down there throbbing, slightly out of sync with his heartbeat.

"You okay?" Wolfwood asked with that edge to his voice, like he thought Vash was going to fall apart.

Vash softened. "I'm fine, Nicholas." He brushed the back of his knuckles across Wolfwood's cheek, feeling the prickly stubble.

Wolfwood didn't look convinced as he reached to touch the bridge of Vash's nose. "Why the light show, then?"

"You're asking a lot of questions tonight," Vash said glibly. "You'll fill your quota soon."

Wolfwood's eyes flashed in warning.

Oops. Vash backed off and gave a helpless shrug.

"I dunno. Doesn't seem like anything's particularly wrong, but...it's definitely kinda weird. I'm assuming the babies are just." He gestured vaguely to his stomach. "Doing Plant things in there. So maybe my body is catching their energy and resonating. That's the only explanation I can think of."

"But you feel okay, though," Wolfwood repeated, searching Vash's face.

Vash leaned in to plant a chaste kiss of apology at the corner of Wolfwood's mouth. "Perfectly okay."

That chased most of the worry from Wolfwood's expression. "Good." As Vash propped up against the wall with a few extra pillows, Wolfwood snuggled up to Vash's side and tucked the covers up over his shoulder with a drowsy sigh. "You not gonna go back to sleep?"

"Not yet," Vash replied, carding his fingers through Wolfwood's thick, messy hair. "Sorry if the light from my eyes keeps you awake. I really would turn it off if I could."

"S'fine," Wolfwood mumbled.

Vash rolled his eyes. "Will it bother you? I'm serious."

"Not even a little bit." A yawn squeezed Wolfwood's eyes shut and garbled his words. "Quitcher worryin', s'bad for the sprouts."

A tiny smile tugged Vash's lips. "Okay," he whispered, caressing Wolfwood's shoulder. His skin was smooth and warm.

"N' take your arm off, dumbass."

"Yes, dear."

"Hmnph."

While Wolfwood dozed, Vash removed his prosthetic and reveled in the relief that followed, placing it on the night table and picking up the notebook where their favorite baby names were scratched down in Meryl's chaotically neat handwriting.

There were dozens upon dozens of them. Oodles, as Milly would say. Wolfwood often scoffed that they were just writing the entire contents of the baby name book down in order, but giving a person a name was a monumental task, okay? Names were forever.

Yeah, yeah, Vash probably second-guessed too much, but he wanted them to be perfect. Besides, he was of the opinion that they needed to meet the babies face to face before they made their final decisions, so they technically had to wait, anyway.

He flipped to the page near the end of the note pad where he'd written down his personal favorite first name/middle name combinations and rested the notebook against the slope of his belly, rubbing his thumb over the names with a longing sigh. His hand wandered to cup the outward curve just beneath his ribs, where he could feel his little boy squirming, slow and sleepy.

Loving warmth settled in the cracks of his heart, wistful and contemplative.

Even though the list of discomforts he faced every day was increasing by what felt like the hour, it didn't bother him as much as it once did. His back hurt, sure, and so did his pelvis and crotch. His ankles were puffy and sore, and he couldn't be on his feet for more than the time it took to take care of basic hygiene and eat. He felt like a planet with its own gravity field. But...it just didn't matter, because all he could think about as he pressed his fingertips over his unborn son and daughter was, I love you more than anything I've ever loved before in my entire life.

He was so ready to meet them, he thought it might drive him crazy before he went into labor.

His heart would often recall the precious kids that lived at Hopeland, their melodious laughter and their gap-toothed smiles and the earthy scent of human children that had been playing outside, and the strangest sense of urgency would ripple over him, stinging his skin and gathering a knot of tension behind his sternum. He wanted that, and he wanted it now. He wanted to be able to cradle his son and daughter on his chest and stroke their sweet-smelling hair, to kiss their pink little cheeks and marvel at how miniscule their toes were, but he couldn't yet, and that made him so irritable. All this affection, and nowhere to put it.

He internalized as much of his turbulent feelings as he could, but he fell short so often. Milly said that moms who were as pregnant as he was were allowed a smidgen of grumpiness every now and then, but it still made him want to shrink up into a ball of shame every time a snappy retort flew from his mouth.

Deep down, though, he knew there was another reason why he was quick to anger these days.

Being a parent was something that used to be unattainable, forever out of his reach. A rose-tinted daydream that he'd sometimes consoled himself with on the really lonely nights, curled on his side in a dingy motel room bed with tears in his grief-dulled eyes and the adorable, imaginary laughter of children he would never have echoing through the empty hollow in his stomach.

Vash the Stampede could never have children. Even if he could, it would be selfish of him to ever try with how dangerous his life was.

But now, "never" was dangling just within his grasp. So close he could almost touch it.

And it could so easily be taken away from him if something went wrong. There was so much weight on his shoulders, the immeasurable value of two tiny lives, and the stress of that had him constantly on edge and anxious.

But, despite everything, he was determined to cling tightly to this fragile slip of happiness with everything he had.

With Nai's unfortunate death, for better or for worse, the season of Vash's life that had consisted of running from mortal danger and never sleeping in the same spot twice had come to a close. After making it through the initial nervous uncertainty that had come with shifting to a more sedentary lifestyle, he'd realized that all he wanted was to settle down and live. There was so much life to living, and somehow, in a hundred and fifty-three years, he still hadn't experienced it all yet. He was tired of fleeing the concept of happiness like it was a deadly disease. If what Rem had said was true, and his future really was a blank ticket that he could do anything he wanted with, then he needed to start living like it was and taking what he wanted from life.

He wanted to see Nicholas and Meryl hold these children he was carrying for the first time. To watch as Milly toted a chubby baby around on each hip, all smiles. To see Brad and Luida finally get to meet living grandchildren. To see his son and daughter grow up surrounded by people who loved them.

Even if it meant wading his way through the shadows of the past to get his son and daughter born into this world, they were worth any amount of mental or physical suffering he could ever go through.

For them, he could do anything.

 

⁌

 

The intense glow of Vash's eyes was still reflecting off his hand when he held it up to his face a couple of hours and a few annoying Braxton Hicks later, seemingly there to stay. The more he thought about it, the less blasé he felt about it.

The babies were definitely still squirming around in there, but what if his body was trying to tell him something was wrong with them? And if that wasn't the issue, what if it was something to do with his gate...?

His eyes wandered to Wolfwood, sleeping lightly by his side.

Since Wolfwood had been genetically augmented with Plant DNA, he would probably be fine if Vash was somehow emitting any of the invisible energy fields Plants could produce, but...what about Meryl and Milly? They were human. Breakable.

Too worked up and restless to attempt any more sleep, Vash stealthily left the bed. He had to admit, he felt a bit proud of himself; even being what Wolfwood had so eloquently described a couple of days ago as "really fucking pregnant", he could still be as soundless as a predator stalking prey when he put his mind to it. Wolfwood and Meryl slept on, blissfully unaware.

It was so early that dawn hadn't even cracked yet, but Luida had always risen before the suns, too perpetually busy to ever consider sleeping in. So, when Vash sheepishly knocked on her door and asked her to examine him just to make sure his gate wasn't going haywire for some reason, she wasted no time ushering him into the scanning chamber that Brad had designed for occasions such as this when Vash was little.

After a few thorough scans, however, she announced that his gate was silent and closed up tight. Thank God for small miracles; he wasn't sure he would've known how to wrangle his power into submission if something had been awry.

Not without Nai's advice.

"Your hypothesis is all we really have to go on," Luida's tinny voice said over the little intercom, bringing the patient table Vash was lying on out of the huge, donut-shaped scanning device with the punch of a button. It whirred quietly as it went. "We'll just have to assume that you're correct, and that it really is the babies causing this. You aren't leaking any radiant energy, so it's more likely to be resonance than gate activity."

"I trust your opinion, as always." Vash struggled for a moment like a turtle on its back before Luida quickened her steps into the scanning chamber and slid an arm around his back to help him sit up. "Ugh. Thanks." He caught a few deep breaths, massaging around his ribs and finding the skin there to be strangely pliable. "Pretty sure I'm right, though. It's faint, but I think I can actually sense some pulses of energy from them every now and then."

Luida looked intrigued. "Oh?"

He stared at a spot on the ceiling. "Yeah. Like the other ones before."

Her hand softly trailed up and down his back. "I see."

It was a bit bewildering, honestly, being able to feel the babies' life forces pinging and humming periodically after so many months of radio silence. Like having two little batteries in his belly.

Even if it brought back a few less than pleasant memories, he had missed that feeling. Warmth and energy, alive and well inside him.

A sudden, pointy jab from what felt like baby girl's foot right behind his poked-out belly button made him hiss through his teeth. It always hurt so bad when he got kicked there; like the pain of smacking your funny bone into a hard surface.

"Ow, kid," he whined.

Instantly, Luida was alert. "Just a kick?"

Vash's cheeks puffed out with the exhale that left his lips. He gently, carefully pressed around the knot of his navel with his thumb. "Yeah. Sharp one. My belly button is her favorite target lately." He beckoned Luida, and she gave him her hand with quiet eagerness. A prim and dainty couple of kicks thumped Luida's palm, and the crow's feet at the corners of her eyes deepened with her radiant smile.

"Oh, hello there, bunny," she cooed. "That's so sweet."

"You'll behave for grandma, huh," Vash muttered, rubbing beside Luida's hand. "Little imp."

Luida chuckled. "She and her brother are going to have us all wrapped around their little fingers." She pressed around a bit higher on Vash's belly. 

Vash sighed through a rueful smile. "Don't I know it."

Now, originally, Vash had planned on heading back to his room after the scan, maybe stopping by the lounge on his way to see if any of those blueberry muffins from yesterday were left, but Luida stopped that plan in her tracks with her next words, spoken gently, as if not to spook him.

"Vash, I want you to go straight to the infirmary when you leave from here."

"Why?" Perplexed, he watched as Luida removed the extradimensional monitors from his arm and the point where his prosthetic connected to his port. "Judy just checked me, like...less than two days ago—night before last."

Luida said nothing as she gripped his hands and gently coaxed him up to his feet. She kept hold of his right hand with both of hers, rubbing his knuckles with her thumbs.

"Look."

Vash followed the direction of her gaze to the glass window that separated the scanning room from the control room, catching his reflection and freezing at the sight of his body. At how his belly had shifted downward, his silhouette noticeably altered.

"What does that mean?" He said faintly.

Luida squeezed his hand. He met her eyes; they were soft. Sympathetic. "I think you know."

Suddenly lightheaded and weak in the knees, Vash sank back down onto the patient table. His heartbeat whooshed in his ears. He pressed the palm of his prosthetic to his heavy front, noticing all at once that he felt...different. That he'd felt different ever since he woke up, or maybe even before. Inexplicably, weirdly different.

His throat tightened around his words. "I'm not in—"

"You've had two contractions in the twenty minutes since you came to get me," Luida countered softly. Vash's eyes snapped up to lock on her in alarm; she just smiled, fond and all-knowing in a way that only a mother could be. "You were squeezing your prosthetic in the scanner."

Shit, he hadn't even noticed himself doing it. What was wrong with him?

"I'm not," he whispered, feeble and childish. Begging for the looming inevitable to be stalled a little longer.

Soft, wrinkled hands cupped his face. He closed his eyes, letting the weight of his head rest in Luida's gentle hold. Her thumb caressed the tiny, raised point of his beauty mark. She touched a lingering kiss to his forehead, then cradled his head against her chest, pressing his ear to her heart. It lub-dubbed softly.

"You are," she whispered back, like a precious secret.

Reality ebbed and flowed over Vash in a sickening wave, gnawing at his guts. Sweat slicked his palm.

He was. Oh, God, he was.

These contractions were different. They had been since he'd gone to the bathroom. He'd felt each one deep down in his lower back and stretching around to the underside of his stomach, burning in his muscles.

Just like every time before.

Luida's free hand moved to his back, rubbing slowly up and down between his shoulder blades, avoiding the sensitive keloid that wrapped over his right shoulder. The gesture made his eyes smart, and the gentle press of baby feet stretching the wall of his womb sent a fat tear rolling down his cheek.

Will I rub their backs like this one day when they're upset?

Then, he thought, dazedly,

Of course I will. I'm their mom.

He was about to be a mom two times over, and he suddenly felt so massively overwhelmed and unprepared that he wanted to burst into tears and hide his face in Luida's skirts like he was three feet tall and only a year old again.

Evidently, Luida could tell. She always had been uncannily adept at reading him, even when he tried to hide how he felt. Her fingers carded through his hair, stroking at his scalp, tender and loving.

"It's going to be okay, baby."

Vash's lip quivered, throat on fire. Hadn't she said the exact same thing that first day, when he'd been staring a wide-eyed and terrified hole through the ultrasound monitor that had displayed his uncertain future on its screen?

His shoulders shuddered as he pressed closer and wrapped his arms around her back. "Oh, God, Luida," he croaked, her name fracturing in the middle when his airway closed off.

"Shhh. I know," Luida murmured, rocking him slightly from side to side. "I know. It's okay to be scared. You're about to do a monumental thing, bringing two new people into the world. It's a big responsibility." She gently pushed him back to gaze into his eyes, moving a strand of his hair out of the way. Her eyes were proud and crinkled at the corners, roving over his face like she'd never seen something she loved so much. "All that matters is that you give it your all for them."

"I'm not strong enough," Vash pleaded through a hushed, aborted sob.

"You don't have to be. Meryl and Nicholas will be there to be strong when you can't." Luida lifted a tear from his cheek with her knuckle, wiping it onto her sleeve. "They love you so. Let them help you bear this burden."

I love them, too, Vash wanted to say, but he was pretty sure the dam holding his tears back would well and truly crumble if he opened his mouth again right now. He held his belly in his right hand, noticing anew just how easy it was to breathe with his uterus sitting so much lower in his torso. His blood buzzed through his veins, lit up with labor hormones that were making his heart palpitate and his stomach twist with too many emotions and endorphins to keep track of.

After a minute of silence and letting himself be held, he let Luida help him back up to his feet. As soon as he was upright, his eyes widened. He'd already felt even more swollen and uncomfortable than usual when he got out of bed, but now, there was something else, something he'd felt many times before and could never mistake for anything else: ominous pressure on his pelvic floor that only promised to forge further downward as the hours went by.

Fuck. His mouth went dry. Fuck, he wasn't ready.

Luida steadied him as he swayed, widening his stance a bit to compensate for the bizarre change in his center of gravity. He felt so front-heavy.

"Would you like me to walk you there?" Luida asked, ever ready to take care of him no matter how busy she was.

Vash gave her a nervous smile and lied through his damn teeth.

"Oh, no, it's fine. I can make it. Just gotta shuffle along like a little old man."

Luida smiled up at him, her arm encircling his back and her other hand patting the side of his belly. "I'll come check on you later, once I get all of today's to-do's sorted."

One hand on the wall, Vash tried his best not to walk funny as he made his way to the door. "Solving everyone's problems again, Dr. Leitner?" He asked over his shoulder. "We should give you a raise."

"Go on, now," Luida chuckled, waving him on. "Get moving."

And he did just as he was told. For about fifty yarz down the hall toward the infirmary.

Then, his feet doubled back, and he turned down an entirely different hallway.

 

⁌

Notes:

*substitution jutsus away* 😶🌫️

Never fear, dear reader, the wait will only be one week this time. The final chapter will be posted next Sunday, as long as nothing insane happens irl to prevent it. Please feel free to bust my kneecaps in the meantime as recompense, though, I deserve it for pulling that 😆

*shakes Vash and yells in Mr. Krabs' voice* WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS, ME BOY

Also, I made a Trigun account on twitter for Trigun things! It was mostly for somewhere to host the art I included in the chapter, but I also needed to be able to retweet some of the incredible art this fandom produces. And maybe occasionally scream about Wolfwood's tits. Here it is if anyone would like to follow: @spicedceylontea

Let me know if you enjoyed! Every comment is hugged tight and lovingly tucked into bed like my own child 🫶

Until next week! 👶👶💖💙

Chapter 9: another life² (part 3)

Notes:

Helooo! Sorry about the slightly mean cliffhanger last week, but it had to be done 🙏

Fair warning, this chapter is a bit more intense than chapter 5. Childbirth is a crazy cool miracle and I absolutely love writing it because of the fascinating medical aspects and emotional weight potential, but when I tell you it's blood-curdling, I mean it. I ain't about to sugarcoat the miracle of life, people. You have been duly warned!

If you spot medical inaccuracies, just know that I'm not an obstetrician! I just do this for fun. If you spot grammer and spelling mistakes, though, please point them out 😅 Microsoft Word doesn't catch everything.

Again, I want to plug the beautiful playlist that GracefullyAutistic built for this fic. It’s been such an inspiration in these last few days of writing, I can’t speak highly enough of it. Thank you again, Ruby! ❤️

Please enjoy this leviathan of a chapter, and thank you so much for all the support on this silly fic 💖💙

As Meryl dragged herself to the shore of wakefulness, she scrunched her whole body up into a ball, inhaling deeply and stuffing her cheek against her pillow. Her eyes squinted open, tracing the dust particles floating in the shaft of golden morning light from the window.

She must've overslept; neither Wolfwood's nor Vash's breathing could be heard. Craning her neck to look, sure enough, she found the bed empty. Haphazardly so.

Miss Melanie would have our hides if we didn't make our beds in the mornings, Wolfwood's voice echoed in her memory.

By the time she'd rolled out of bed and brushed her teeth and thrown on some clothes, a little bubble of unease had formed in her stomach. Things seemed awfully quiet. Normally, she could've at least heard the faint sounds of breakfast dishes and cutlery clinking from the lounge down the hall, along with an occasional bark of laughter from Milly or Vash, but this morning, it was eerily still in the way an empty room always was, solitude sinking in your chest and your own noise of motion too loud.

Just as she was pulling her shoes on, she heard approaching footsteps. Jogging. The door to their room whshh'd aside, revealing a harried Wolfwood and a frazzled Milly.

"Not here, either." Milly's tone was strained.

Wolfwood stalked into the room, muttering breathy expletives through clenched jaw. He was rapidly flipping a black fountain pen end over end in one hand.

The other walkie-talkie for Vash's earring radio.

Meryl felt like she'd swallowed an ice cube whole. "Is he not answering you?"

"Stubborn brat won't pick up at all," Wolfwood seethed, hooking the pen back onto his shirt collar with a jerk. There was a feverish glint in his eyes. "I'm reaching dead air, like he's just ignoring the call. I know he can hear me, too."

Meryl's shoulders dropped in dismay, and she dug her fingers into the inner corners of her eyes with a heavy sigh, already exhausted after five minutes of being awake. Then, she strapped the velcro of her shoes around her ankles and stood up.

"Well, he has to be somewhere, right? Someone as pregnant as he is can't have gotten too far."

"You're dead wrong about that, shortstack. We've looked everywhere. He up and ceased to exist."

She let Wolfwood's biting tone slide, easily seeing past his anger to the writhing distress underneath. "Did you check the Plant chamber?"

"That was the last place we looked," Milly supplied. "He's not in the kitchen or the geodome, either."

"Infirmary?"

"We were headed there next, but I thought he mighta come back here, so we stopped to check." Wolfwood scrubbed a hand through his hair. "Doubt he would just be casually shooting the shit with granny and ignoring my calls."

Meryl didn't think so, either. Something didn't seem right.

"Let's get moving, then."

Unfortunately, though, Judith hadn't seen Vash since the day before, and was worried and none too pleased to hear he'd disappeared.

"Let's see if Dr. Leitner has seen him," she suggested, leading their little impromptu search party of four at a brisk power walk to Luida's office. "Even if she hasn't, she can check the security cameras to see where the hell he's run off to."

When they knocked on the door and entered at Luida's call of permission, Brad, leaning his hip against the desk, and Luida, seated behind it, both looked up.

Luida did a double take at them, her smile fading when she saw Judith. "Has something happened?"

"Mr. Vash has disappeared." Milly was picking at her thumb again, scratching the nail of her ring finger down the side of the cuticle. "We haven't been able to find him anywhere all morning."

Brad crossed his arms with a frown and a hum. Luida's brow pinched and her eyes narrowed ever so slightly, but not in the same way Brad's had. It wasn't the expression of someone who had just been caught off guard; more like she was trying to piece something together in her brain. She pulled up the data hologram of her desk with a quick gesture across its touch pad and started swiping through the hundreds of security cameras that monitored the ship.

"You still get your feelings hurt when this happens, huh," Brad said to Milly, not unkindly. "Sudden vanishing acts are an unavoidable Vashism. You'll get used to it."

"This ain't like it usually is," Wolfwood growled. "He's ignoring my radio calls."

Brad snorted, much less kindly. "Wouldn't be the first time he's done that, either."

"Your nonchalant attitude's pissin' me off, gramps." Wolfwood's teeth were clenched, giving Meryl a glimpse of canines that were slightly too sharp. His drawl always got more pronounced when he was angry. "I dunno if you’re losin’ your eyesight in your old age, but needle noggin's fit to fuckin' pop any day now, so I would rather him not be alone."

"I did see Vash, around five this morning," Luida said carefully, preemptively breaking up the argument between the soon-to-be dad and grandpa. Brad raised a bewildered eyebrow at her in an expression that clearly said it was news to him, too. "He came to me and asked for a gate scan. Nothing abnormal came up on it, though."

"Why the fuck didn't you say so sooner?" Wolfwood snapped, fists clenched and shoulders canting forward like he wanted to snatch Luida over the desk by the collar of her shirt. Meryl gripped his arm in a silent please calm down and don't get us thrown out of here, but it did little to smooth down his ruffled feathers.

She almost couldn't blame him too hard.

"Because I'm just as puzzled as you are," Luida said evenly, propping her elbow on the desk and resting her chin on her fist. Her eyes flicked across each image she scrolled through, her brown irises tinted dull blue from the light of the hologram. "I told him to go straight to the infirmary when he left the scanning chamber."

Meryl's heart tripped and missed a beat. "Why? Was he feeling sick or something?"

"No, he was alright, he wasn't sick," Luida quickly assured Meryl, flashing a thin, distracted smile. "But I noticed him having some pretty obvious contractions before and during the scan, and his...well." She hesitated. "I'm no obstetrician, but it looked to me like his belly may have dropped since yesterday. When I pointed it out to him, he got shifty. You know how he does."

They all exchanged a trepidatious glance. Wolfwood's hand sought Meryl's out, and she gladly gave it; the grip of his large, calloused fingers anchored her heart. Judith closed her eyes and massaged her temples with the heels of her hands like she was working toward the mother of all migraines. Milly looked like she was about five seconds away from chewing her thumb clean off. Even Brad was starting to look uneasy.

"You could've told me," he mumbled to Luida.

Luida gave his arm an apologetic pat. "I knew you would spend the day working yourself into an anxious lather if I told you too soon."

Brad's face reddened. He shuffled, looking down and clearing his throat but offering no rebuttal.

"So Mr. Vash could be in labor right now and we don't even know where he is?" Milly's voice cracked.

Wolfwood let go of Meryl's hand and began to pace. "I'm gonna strangle that dumbass," he vowed under his breath.

She caught up to him, slipping her arms around his waist. He halted in his tracks.

"Vash is fine," she whispered, nestling her cheek on his stomach. Wolfwood's hands buried in her hair. She felt his fingers tremble on her scalp.

"You don't know that," he hissed. She looked up at him; his eyes were dark and cold like slate deep underground. "Something could've happened to him—hell, I'm not sure if Bluesummers got cooked at July or not, what if—"

"Nick." Meryl reached up to cup his face, brushing the pad of her thumb across the scratchy stubble peppered above the corner of his lip. "Wherever he is, Vash is safe. The Plants would be going ballistic if something bad had happened to him."

As if that hadn't occurred to him, Wolfwood's ire dampened.

Judith's gaze whipped over to Brad. "Were they acting normal this morning when you first checked on them?"

Brad crossed one arm over his chest and scratched one of his long sideburns with a thin-lipped, closed-mouth sigh. "Far as I remember," he finally said after some silent thought. "Seems like a few more of 'em were awake and unfurled than there have been for the past few days, but that's nothin' too out of the ordinary. If he was in real trouble, they would be goin' nuts, like the little lady said. We'd be havin' power surges left and right from them trying to get our attention." His eyes suddenly clouded over with tiredness, as if he was remembering something that wore him out.

Milly placed her hands over her heart, the lines on her forehead decreasing. "They care about him so much."

"I've caught two fleeting glimpses of him on security footage from this morning, but this little scamp knows where all the cameras' blind spots are," Luida huffed in exasperation. "How he managed to be so stealthy being as big as he is is beyond me."

Wolfwood cracked his knuckles. The sound of anxiety.

"Why would he hide himself away like this if he's about to have his babies?" Milly asked quietly, almost to herself.

Meryl saw a bottomless and motherly compassion soften the wrinkles around Luida's eyes.

"He's just frightened, Milly," Luida answered softly. "He was trying to hide how rattled he was when he left the scanning chamber, but I could tell. I really should've insisted on accompanying him to the infirmary, but...he hates being babied, so I didn't want to push." She sighed. "He's been through hell and back his whole life with...these kinds of things. It..." Her lips pursed minutely downward, and she rubbed at the inner corners of her closed eyes. When she spoke again, her voice was hushed and haunted. "...it breaks my heart just remembering, sometimes."

Brad rested his broad hand on her shoulder. For a moment, all was quiet until Wolfwood spoke up.

"Is there anywhere else we could check? Wrack your brains, people."

Meryl frowned, sifting through her memories. Combing through every conversation she could remember having with Vash lately. She paced slowly, crossing her arms, rubbing her chin.

Suddenly, Vash's voice surfaced out of the jumble of her thoughts.

Sometimes, I just...go outside and find a high place to look up at the sky, because it's the closest I'll ever get to seeing him again.

She drew in a sharp gasp; Wolfwood nearly jumped a foot in the air beside her, then gave an embarrassed scoff and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Fuck, shortcake, don't do that, I'm on edge," he snapped.

She ignored him and turned back to Brad and Luida.

"What's the highest spot on the ship that's open to the sky?"

 

⁌

 

Several yarz away from platform of the long, long elevator that had zoomed them up here, Vash sat cross-legged on the metal hull of the ship with his back turned, right smack dab where miss priss had guessed he might be.

She was sharp as a tack. Jesus Christ, Wolfwood loved her.

Ever the skilled negotiator, Meryl had convinced the others to wait in the infirmary for them so they wouldn't bum-rush and overwhelm Vash with too many accusing presences at once. If he had riled himself up enough to hide from them for upwards of five hours, he didn't need them kicking up a huge fuss. Had to treat him like an injured cat: slow, steady, and just hold out your hand.

Patience wasn't exactly Wolfwood's Fruit of the Spirit, but he could try.

Vash's broad shoulders had tensed up at the sound of the elevator door opening, but he didn't turn to look at them. He was probably afraid to, dreading the panicked, furious tongue-lashing he was about to receive.

(A tongue-lashing that Meryl and Wolfwood had mutually agreed they would postpone until Vash had safely made it through the stress of labor and delivery. No need to wear on his nerves any more than necessary at the moment.)

So, they simply approached Vash with easy, unhurried steps and sat down on either side of him.

Wolfwood stuck a grape-flavored lollipop in his mouth to suck on and pulled out his pocket knife and the little block of wood he'd been whittling on lately. Might as well do something productive while they waited for needle noggin to sort through his broom-headed thoughts.

He had plenty to look at in the meantime, at least; it was an insane view from up here. They were iles up in the air, the vast red desert yawning before them with no civilization around as far as the eye could see. Ship Three stayed to themselves. Sadly, it was safer that way. Suns-warmed metal bled an almost uncomfortable heat through the fabric of Wolfwood's trousers that made him remember the old metal slide at Hopeland that would sear your leg meat if you slid down it wearing shorts, but the wind made up for it; cool air tousled his hair this way and that, smelling of clean sunshine.

No one said a word. Not even when they heard Vash's breathing stutter in his nose and become too measured, his prosthetic hand wandering to grip the underside of his belly.

Wolfwood's heart felt leaden. He swallowed the ashen taste of painful memories, of the last time they'd heard Vash breathe like that. Lightly, almost without conscious thought, his fingers pressed at Vash's lower back, finding his tailbone.

Meryl just offered Vash her hand. Vash's scarred right hand hovered over hers, trembling, then rested ever so lightly in it.

That was reassuring. If Vash was still allowing himself to hold Meryl's fragile, human hand, he wasn't in too much pain yet, which meant he was probably still in the early stages of labor. His pants were dry, too, so his water hadn't broken.

Good...that was real good. Now, if Wolfwood could just calm the fuck down, that would be dandy. He still felt like a live landmine, his wrists unsteady and his stomach tight and sour with worry that hadn't quite drained away yet.

When the contraction faded and Vash had relaxed again, he spoke in a tiny, breathy voice.

"I'm sorry." Wolfwood took the opportunity to look at him closely for the first time. He was hugging his belly now, grasping his prosthetic wrist, and his eyes, pointed down at his non-existent lap, were still surrounded by Plant markings, glowing fluorescent blue even in fairly bright ten a.m. sunslight. "I know me doing that probably worried all of you sick. I just needed...I don't know. To not be around anyone for a little while." A tired little inhale and exhale. "The last thing I meant to do was scare anyone, but...that doesn't change the fact that I did. It was selfish of me."

"You're forgiven," Meryl murmured, short and simple. She snuggled up to his side and wrapped her arm around his bump as far as she could, which wasn't far at all, and Vash hugged her closer to kiss the top of her head. Meryl peered around Vash at Wolfwood, expectant and pointed.

"I'm gettin' there," Wolfwood grunted around the sucker in his cheek. "More worried about how you're doin' than my bruised feelings, ya damn blond paintbrush."

Some of the worry around Vash's eyes faded. Olive branch received.

Wolfwood flicked another paper-thin curlicue of wood away with his knife, watching the wind carry it away. "How far apart are the pains?"

Vash looked up into the sky, speaking quietly, as if he didn't want to disturb the feathery veil of cirrus clouds overhead. "About fifteen minutes. Probably."

Early labor, then.

With a sigh, Wolfwood held the lump of wood up, turning it this way and that. Starting to look kinda like a bird.

"It's time, angel," he said as gently as he could. He could practically hear Vash's heart speeding up, trying to break out of the metal cage that covered it. "We need to get to the infirmary and get you settled in before you don't feel like walking that far."

An audible swallow. "Yeah," Vash rasped. "I...yeah."

Meryl unfolded her legs and stood up. "C'mon. Milly's fixing it up all comfy for you in there," she coaxed, offering Vash her hand.

They—mostly Wolfwood—helped Vash to his feet. Once upright, he ground his knuckles against his lower back with a deep cringe and an "aow" under his breath. Wolfwood blew out a low, soft whistle at the sight of Vash's bump, reaching out to give it a pat. Luida had been very right.

"You're droppin'." Wolfwood gently placed his hand just beneath Vash's ribs where their son was still curled up, making Vash's stomach a bit lopsided. "Or, rather, she dropped. He's still way up here."

"Mhm," Vash breathed, clutching the underside of his stomach like it was a bruise. "I feel...a lot different."

Meryl's eyes glistened. She took both of Vash's hands, gazing up into his eyes, and Vash visibly melted. "They're both getting so close," she said through an emotional little laugh.

Wolfwood's heart tripped and fell flat on its face. They were going to have a daughter in a few hours, and a son shortly after her.

"Let's get movin'. No more dilly-dallyin'," he prompted, letting Vash drape his arm around his shoulders for support. Meryl placed her hand on the small of Vash's back. Vash leaned more weight on Wolfwood than he usually would have, and Wolfwood had to resist the urge to just sweep him into a princess carry and be done with it.

Best to let him be as independent as he wanted for now. He was already about to go through something that was largely out of his control.

With Vash half-limping along between them, they made their way back to the infirmary. As they walked, the little wooden maybe-bird weighed heavy in Wolfwood's pocket.

Maybe he needed to make two of them.

 

⁌

 

Meryl and Nick may have been quick to forgive, but Milly and Judith...not so much.

"C'mon, now, I said I was sorry," Vash wheedled for the fourth time as Judith checked the babies' heartbeats with a handheld fetal doppler. Staticky heartbeats crackled from the small speaker, one after the other.

She didn't rise to his whining like she normally would've. Her lips carved a white line across her face as she wiped the gel off his stomach, leveling him with a look that could've stripped paint off a wall before turning away to record the results on her clipboard.

Vash pulled the loose grey hospital shirt back down over his belly and linked his fingers at the underside, eyes downcast. Judith was probably clamming up to avoid snapping his head off. The silent treatment was her temporary way of not hurting your feelings worse.

She was really mad, then.

Meanwhile, he could barely bring himself to make eye contact with Milly's incredulous, narrow-eyed stare from the end of his bed, like she couldn't believe what he'd done to them. More than angry, she just looked hurt, and boy, did that ever make Vash feel like the scummiest lowlife on the planet. He would've sooner lopped his other arm off with a meat cleaver than ever intentionally hurt Milly.

Luida and Brad just looked resigned and mildly annoyed, respectively. Vash had put them through too much in his lifetime for them to be surprised by his antics at this point, he realized with a guilty tug on his heart.

"You're in the doghouse now, pretty boy," Wolfwood informed him unabashedly around his chewed-clean lollipop stick. Meryl gave him a dark look and kicked the side of his foot.

Milly broke first, uncrossing her arms and sighing. "I know you're sorry," she mumbled, walking round the bed. Vash reached out a pleading hand, and after a moment of petulant staring, Milly took it and sat down. Her eyes were misty, her lower lip red and raw. "You just worried me a whole lot, you know? I thought something terrible had happened to you and the babies."

Vash's stomach knotted. Milly wasn't as used to his...him as the others were yet. While the others would eventually sigh and shrug and realize that he never meant anything personal when he pulled stunts like that, Milly was new. Milly had genuinely been scared for his wellbeing.

He held her hand in both of his, his throat tugging painfully at the bandages decorating both of her thumbs.

"I...I'll try not to worry you so much in the future."

Milly's furrowed brow softened. She leaned down to slip her strong, gentle arms around him, and Vash closed his eyes, hating himself a little bit for drinking the affection in. Milly's hugs were indescribably special to him.

"Holding you to it," she murmured in his ear. He nodded silently.

When they separated, Vash snuggled back against the small mountain of pillows that had been arranged in his infirmary bed. As Meryl had said, Milly had brought a bunch of pillows and blankets from their room, turning the stark white infirmary bedding into a mismatched but cushy nest. A stack of absorbent pads was draped over one rail for later, to protect the sheets and blankets once his water broke. He hugged Meryl's pillow to his chest, burying his face in it and indulging in the familiar scent that clung to the pillowcase.

"I'm not getting my pillow back, am I," Meryl chuckled, hands on her hips.

Vash squared his shoulders defensively, holding the pillow away from her. "It's not my fault your shampoo smells so good!"

Meryl flapped her hand. "I'm just teasing. I can use another for a while."

"Your contribution is greatly appreciated." He couldn't help but glance at the clock.

He had about three minutes left. His throat was full of sand.

Suddenly, he realized Luida had said something. He looked up to see her sitting down next to him. "I—sorry, what? I missed that," he said sheepishly.

Patient as ever, Luida repeated herself. "I asked if you're alright. Your face turned rather white."

Vash swallowed. "Just nervous."

As much as he hated to admit it.

Luida patted his shoulder with an understanding look.

Suddenly, Brad leaned in beside her, and his rough, worn hand squeezed the top of Vash's head, gently shaking it from side to side much like he'd done when Vash was still a little kid.

"I ain't gonna stay here and smother ya," he said quietly in Vash's ear. "But if somethin' happens, good or bad, you know I'm just a pager call away. I'll come runnin'."

Vash wrapped an arm around Brad's neck, and with a resigned sigh, Brad awkwardly returned the half hug. He'd never been a hugger, but he'd always made an exception for Vash.

"Careful running on those old knees, grandpa," Vash whispered back. Brad clicked his tongue behind his teeth as he pulled away, pinching Vash's nose shut and earning a nasally squawk of protest. As he turned to go, he gave Vash's belly a couple of pats; Vash didn't miss the minute tremble of Brad's hand that he probably would've insisted was caused by his arthritis and nothing else.

(Vash knew better. Those hands had cradled the body of Vash's third daughter like she was made of spun sugar just minutes after her birth in the bloodthirsty sands. Even being barely conscious from heat exhaustion and blood loss as he'd been, Vash would never, ever be able to forget how stricken Brad had looked, hopeless and anguished like he'd somehow felt responsible for the heartbreaking shitshow Vash's body had imposed on them all.

They had lowered her into a petite, unmarked grave a few hours later in the geodome. Oh, how the Plants had mourned her.)

Luida watched Brad go, then stood up, herself. "Well, I have some supply reports to finish up."

In other words, I'm too worried about you to sit around and do nothing while watching you hurt. Vash knew her like the back of his hand. Luida was often stern and no-nonsense, but when it came to Vash, her heart was softer than pudding. She couldn't stand to see him in pain. It was almost like it hurt her, too, somehow.

Rem had been the exact same way. Maybe all mothers were.

He rubbed at the sluggish kick he'd just felt on his side. "I think you need a vacation, you work too much."

Luida's face was perfectly straight. "Vacation? I've never heard of this word."

Vash managed an anemic smile. "Come back later. You'll have to meet them."

Luida's eyes held endless sympathy, softened by her impending joy. She leaned over to plant a kiss on Vash's forehead.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world."

Once Luida was gone, Judith snapped one glove on.

"Can I check your dilation?" Even still disgruntled by his disappearing act, she would've never done so without his permission.

Vash opened his mouth to absently agree, but it took him a moment of consideration to realize that the creeping, uneasy feeling in his stomach wasn't just dread at his cervix being prodded.

Quickly, he shook his head with a faint "hold on" and closed his eyes, gripping the plastic railing of the bed in his hands. He could feel Meryl and Wolfwood drawing close at his sides.

God, he hated contractions so much.

He tried to focus on the weight of Meryl's hand resting on his upper arm, turning his head to the side on the pillow, but powerful despair leaked through the building cramp until exertion wasn't the only reason he was panting. Water lapped at his shoulders. The squeak of an old, wobbling ceiling fan filled his ears, not quite drowning out the hollow echoes of his sister's inconsolable wailing that he heard somewhere deep inside his own head.

His heart climbed up his throat. He didn't want this, she was just going to be dead when she came out, just like all the rest—

A light, sweet voice broke through the memory, grabbing ahold of him with a sure grip.

"You're doing really well, Mr. Vash."

His frantic pulse slowed down. The pain faded into lingering soreness, and he opened his eyes, not to the dim, yellowish lighting of a cramped bathroom in New Moab, but to the familiar daylight fluorescents of Home's infirmary. Wolfwood, who had been timing the contraction on his watch, scratched his cheek and muttered, "little less than a minute." Meryl fretted with the pillow under Vash's head, trying to keep him comfortable, and Milly smiled down at him, kind as could be. Judith was sitting patiently on the end of the bed, ready to check his dilation as soon as he gave her the okay.

A solid shift and nudge from both babies within him flooded a weird feeling through his veins that almost felt like…peace? Surely not. Peace had never been a factor in this equation. Only the kind of sorrow that made him want to curl up in a cave somewhere and stop existing.

He passed his hand over his belly, breathing out, thin but easy.

"Thanks, Mil."

 

⁌

 

Since everything looked great, Vash wasn't anywhere close to pushing yet, and he seemed about five seconds away from crawling up the walls out of sheer, anxious restlessness, Judith ordered the others to take him for a walk in the geodome.

"We'll keep him on a short leash," Meryl promised, handing Judith the fountain pen receiver for Vash's earring radio. It never hurt to be prepared, even if he was just in early labor.

"You make me sound like a misbehaving dog," Vash muttered in offense as Milly held out her hands to help him to his feet.

To Meryl's amused shock, Judith whipped around and, with perfect aim, beaned Vash square in the forehead with an eraser from her desk. Vash yelped and flinched backward, letting go of Milly's hand to rub the spot with his eyes all big and liquid.

"Don't run off like a pregnant stray to have your puppies in a closet somewhere, then," Judith sniffed. She waved them away. "Get him out of my sight for a little while before I box his ears."

Judith couldn't fool Meryl; she caught that fond head shake as Judith turned around.

Vash whined about his mortal injury the entire way there, leaning on Wolfwood and Milly like he'd been shot in the leg instead of lightly thunked in the forehead with a bouncy little eraser. Probably to cover up how jittery he was, Meryl reckoned. She could still hear his prosthetic fingers shaking every now and then, and he was shivering like he couldn't get warm.

But, as they walked around the geodome, sniffing flowers and watching fat little honeybees from the nearby apiary busy themselves with the important job of pollinating the various flora, Vash seemed a great deal calmer than Meryl would've expected. She knew how much he'd been dreading this day, but even when they had to stop and let him brace against Milly or Wolfwood and sway and breathe through contractions, he weathered the pains with minimal panic-driven nausea afterward.

Evidently, Vash hadn't expected it, either.

"This is weird and I don't trust it," Vash eventually grumbled, closing his eyes and wiping a trickle of sweat from his neck with his wrist, then scratching the spot with his fingernails.

"Thirteen minutes apart, a minute long again." Wolfwood looked up from his watch and raised a brow. "Don't trust what?"

"How calm I feel." Vash inhaled and exhaled in quick succession, fanning himself with his hand and pushing his hair back off his forehead. "Ugh."

Meryl took her notebook out of her pocket and fanned him with it. His faint smile sent her silent gratitude.

"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth," Milly said sagely.

"I guess I shouldn't, but based on past experience, that might end up with me getting crunched under the other shoe that drops." Vash sighed. "Been there, done that."

Milly set her hands on her hips, concerned. "That doesn't sound like you. Where's all your optimism gone?"

Meryl wasn't positive of what Vash had been going to say when he opened his mouth and immediately snapped it shut like he'd thought better of speaking at all, but she had to guess that something along the lines of "buried in the sand with all my other daughters" probably wouldn't have been too far off the mark.

"No sense in expecting the worst. That just makes you feel sadder," Milly continued. "And it might be for nothing."

Vash made a tired, but affirming sound. "Yeah. You're right about that." He was twisting the knuckle of his index finger into the corner of his eye like he often did when he was getting drowsy.

Maybe he could sleep a bit, like last time.

Meryl hooked her arm through his. "Wanna head back to the infirmary? I think I feel a nap coming on." She gave a convincing little yawn.

And since Vash would contort himself backwards to accommodate literally anyone but himself, he quickly agreed. Not two minutes after helping him get settled back in bed, he was dozing off with Meryl's pillow in his arms and Wolfwood's pillow wedged under the side of his belly, probably having completely forgotten that Meryl was the one who'd said she needed a nap.

Wolfwood offered Meryl the world's most silent high-five, and Milly presented her with two thumbs up and a cheeky grin.

While Vash slept under Judith's watchful eye, Wolfwood and Milly trekked to the kitchen to slap together some sandwiches, and Meryl fetched the basket of baby supplies they had built up from the assortment Milly had brought. It was piled high with everything the twins would need immediately after birth, brimming with diapers and wipes and blankets and the tiniest, most precious onesies and socks and knit caps and pants Meryl had ever seen. It put a skip in her step as she returned to the infirmary to remember that her godson and goddaughter would be wearing these sweet little outfits in just a few hours.

She wished they could know exactly how many hours it would be, but Judith said that labor and delivery just couldn't be predicted like that. The last time, in New Moab, it had been relatively short considering there were two babies to have. As near as Meryl could remember, from the van all the way to the second baby the next morning, it had been around fourteen hours. She'd heard of some labors lasting two, even three days in the worst case scenario, so at least in that regard, fate had been kind.

Maybe this time wouldn't be too long, either, then. One of the books for expectant parents that Milly had brought them said that labors tended to shorten with every subsequent pregnancy the mother had.

Considering this was Vash's fifth rodeo, Meryl could only hope so.

 

⁌

 

"You didn't have to carry me," the mumbled words warmed Wolfwood's collarbone. "I could've walked."

Wolfwood just hefted Vash's feverish body a bit higher in his arms, unwilling to argue.

While Vash had slumbered, his Plant markings had slowly brightened, creeping their way over his ears and down his jawline, patchy on his neck. His body temperature had already risen dramatically, which made Wolfwood a bit nervous if he was honest. That hadn't happened until way later last time, when Vash had lit up like a light bulb in the bathtub.

He wasn't sure there was any use in comparing this labor to the last one, though. These babies and the method by which they'd been conceived were so different from the Dependent Plants Vash had given birth to that there wasn't really a frame of reference for this time. Vash had never carried children with human DNA before. Pretty much anything could happen and they wouldn't know if it was normal or not.

Regardless, after Vash had slept through as much of his labor as he possibly could, he'd woken up around midnight, cross and sweaty and swearing through contractions that had evidently intensified while he was asleep. Meryl had suggested that Wolfwood take Vash to the nearest washroom that had a shower and see if hot water would cut down on his pain a little bit like last time.

And to get him away from the old crone for a little while. They could both tell that Vash was feeling a bit stifled by her constant, intense concern, even though Judith had nothing but the best intentions. Despite not loving it himself, Wolfwood couldn't really fault her for being a bit pushy and overbearing. Not after everything Vash had been through. She was probably feeling the pressure to make sure these babies came out alive.

Once Vash was under the spray of hot water in a shower stall that was definitely not built for two grown ass men to share, it did seem to unwind him a bit. At least, he seemed a little less snappy and nervous. Wolfwood let Vash use his body as a crutch, arm slung limply around his shoulders and forehead pressed to his chest, hips canted back and belly low.

He wouldn't hold their hands anymore. Not even Wolfwood's. Already getting too bad for that, he had mumbled, faint under the white noise of the shower.

The memory of Meryl's blackened shoulder bruise from years ago made Wolfwood reluctantly agree. He had no vials left; if Vash crushed his hand beyond repair, it wouldn't be an insta-fix.

At least it freed his hands to keep counterpressure on Vash's tailbone during contractions.

"That helps so much," Vash wobbled out during the latest relief period, sagging in Wolfwood's arms. "Thank you." His face was tipped toward the ceiling and his eyes were closed, black lashes speckled with water droplets that may very well have been tears and not shower water.

Wolfwood brushed wet blond clumps back from Vash's hot forehead, watching a rivulet travel down his temple and cheek. "That one was gnarly, huh."

An airy, absent "mmhmm" creaked from Vash's throat. Poor guy sounded so fucking miserable. He took an uneven breath, resting his head on Wolfwood's shoulder. "She already feels way too big for my hips," he rasped, heavy with fear. "Nick, how the hell am I gonna get her out...?"

The wave of nauseous sympathy that crested over Wolfwood nearly knocked him to his knees. He pressed his hand over Vash's nape, thumbing across damp black hair.

"You'll get her out, blondie. If not, granny will."

Though, let's be real, here, neither option was going to be a barrel of laughs. If Vash ended up not being able to push their daughter out, Judith and the on-standby surgical team would be forced to get both babies out of him as quickly as was feasibly possible. It was going to be excruciating for him with little to no pain relief to keep him from feeling it. That level of pain could scar someone for life.

Vash didn't deserve any more scars, mental or physical.

Wolfwood really, really hated how touch and go the whole thing was shaping up to be. From the uncertainty of whether or not Vash was even going to be able to get the babies through his narrow hips without injuring them or himself, to the unpredictability of which way little man would turn if Vash did manage to push baby girl out, Wolfwood was wary of it all. Optimism didn't exactly come naturally to him after everything he'd lived through, but he tried not to voice the doom and gloom that had his heart in a chokehold. Vash was stressed to hell and back enough already without Wolfwood shoveling more anxiety onto his plate with dire predictions.

All he could do was be as much of a strong support for Vash as possible, and pray for the Almighty to carry him through this to the other side relatively unscathed.

Vash soon got tired of standing but didn't want to leave the shower yet since the hot water was helping his back pain, so Wolfwood helped him sit down, angling the shower head to land on his shoulders so the water would run down his back. As Vash rocked and huffed and groaned, pressing his forehead against the wall of the shower, Wolfwood sat behind him and mashed his thumbs deeply into his tailbone, leaning out of the way of the shower spray so Vash could still feel it.

"You can't...be comfortable like that," Vash gasped out, shoulders finally drooping as he caught his breath. Wolfwood glanced at the watch he'd set outside the shower stall along with Vash's prosthetic; just over a minute, eleven minutes apart. "You're all folded up...sideways."

Wolfwood took a deep breath and indulged himself in a long, cleansing eye roll. How Vash even had the spare brain cells to worry about anyone but himself right now was beyond Wolfwood.

"I ain't the one with a whole baby wedgin' my string-bean-sized hips apart," he replied wryly. "I think I'll be fine."

Vash made a sound that was either a high, pitiful laugh or a frightened sob. "Oh, God, she really is, though. It feels horrible." Before Wolfwood could be too saddened by that uncharacteristically forthright admission, Vash held his hand up over his shoulder. "Could you help me wash my hand? I need to check."

Wolfwood obliged, helping Vash scrub his hand thoroughly and rinse it. Judy probably would've had a cow and a half over Vash checking his dilation on his own, but the way Wolfwood saw it, Vash had done this enough times to know what he was doing. Sadly, he was an old pro.

As Vash hiked one leg up and hunched over, holding his breath, Wolfwood rubbed the small of his back in silent support.

"What's the verdict," Wolfwood asked quietly after a minute of Vash hissing in discomfort.

"I don't know the exact number, but it's...definitely wider than it was." Vash shifted and shuddered from head to toe with a grossed-out noise. "That's weird."

Wolfwood narrowed his eyes. "What is?"

Vash's back muscles quivered. "I think—I'm feeling the pod. ...Wait, no, these aren't...um. Th-the sac. Feels like...she's in a bubble."

Wolfwood's heart stumbled over five beats at once, all thoughts of Vash being an old pro at this instantly fleeing his brain, and he reached forward to grab Vash's bicep. "Don't go pokin' it, dipshit! You could break your water!"

"I know not to poke it, Wolfwood, good grief!" Vash said, exasperated. "What am I, a toddler?"

"Mentally, or—?"

Vash paused. "I'm going to hit you."

"Ey, ey, ey." Wolfwood gently jabbed him in the back of the head. "Now who's the battered housewife?"

Soundless laughter shook Vash's shoulders. He turned to look at Wolfwood; even through all the pain and fatigue and worry, his glowing cyan eyes were still so sweet and earnest. Wolfwood nearly stopped breathing.

"I could never hit you, mon chéri. I think I would cry."

Heat poured into Wolfwood's cheeks, and he looked away, grinding his teeth and scowling. He was not getting fucking charmed by a bedraggled and in labor Vash the Stampede right now.

He totally was. Fuck's sake, he was so gone for this idiot.

He shuffled in the shower stall with a harsh sigh. "I was jokin', you needle-noggined—" he shook his head. "C'mere and lemme wash your hair, you've been sweatin' for hours."

"You might have to come here." Vash sounded apologetic. "This position feels better for my hips, I kinda don't wanna move."

"Picky, picky..."

As Wolfwood lathered Vash's hair, it was hard not to notice how tense the muscles of his neck and shoulders were. He gentled his touch, scrubbing Vash's scalp with care and purpose, wringing excess bubbles away to be washed down the drain, then moved his hands down to massage at the back of Vash's neck and down his shoulders. He received a tired, grateful hum in return.

Just as Wolfwood was rinsing Vash's hair, Vash locked up with a tight gasp of shock and pain, slapping his hand against the wall. Wolfwood nearly slipped and fell sideways out of the shower stall.

"What? What? Another one already?" He demanded, fingers digging probably too hard into the ball of Vash's shoulder.

"No, it's—aagh!—" Vash jerked up further on his knees, thighs quivering violently "—oh, my God. Your daughter doesn't...realize how little room she has now," he gritted out. His fist curled up against the wall, knuckles blanching. Wolfwood's heart rabbited with aborted adrenaline. Then, Vash relaxed as abruptly as he'd tensed up, wet-noodling against the wall. "Holy shit. Felt like she tried to twist around in a one-eighty in there." He gulped heavily, caressing the underside of his bump. "I thought I was gonna throw up for a second. Don't do that, baby girl..."

Wolfwood rubbed his hammering chest, tightly shutting his eyes. Mother of God, these three typhoons were going to scare him into an early grave one of these days. He scooted closer and slid his arms around Vash's hips, wedging his hands underneath his belly to hold it in his palms. It was stupidly heavy.

"Settle down in there, will ya, sister?" Wolfwood rubbed his thumbs across taut, scarred skin, feeling his daughter squirm beneath. "Your mom's workin' as fast as he can."

"Sure doesn't feel that way." Breathless, Vash slumped back against Wolfwood's chest. One knee slowly fell sideways to thunk against the shower wall, his head lolling on Wolfwood's shoulder. "I wish I was done. I'm hurting all over."

Wolfwood's brow pinched, then he sighed and nudged a kiss onto Vash's wet cheek, nose pressing into softness. "I know. You're doin' real good, though."

Vash was silent, eyes closed, breathing labored. Wolfwood shifted to keep the spray of water out of his eyes, shielding him. If Vash had found a comfortable spot, he wasn't going to make him move until he wasn't comfortable anymore.

Two contractions went by like this. Vash failed to latch onto Wolfwood's breathing pattern both times, panting and moaning like a wounded animal all the while. Wolfwood was at least seventy percent sure he saw tears mingling with the water from the shower, rolling down Vash's cheeks.

"I think I need to get out," Vash finally croaked. "My back is getting worse."

Wolfwood turned off the water, reaching for the nearby towel to yank it off the rack.

"Aye aye, captain."

 

⁌

 

"Take a good breath, sweetheart. You're holding it again."

Lying on his side with a thick pillow between his shaking thighs, Vash struggled to make his lungs inflate, grinding his teeth through the needles that resulted across his ribs. He swallowed back a groan, squeezing his eyes shut and adjusting his cramping fingers around his prosthetic ulna.

Meryl's fingers were cool in his damp hair. The sheets were soft beneath him. He wasn't in a rusty, bloodstained bathtub. He wasn't.

"You're safe at Home with us, Mr. Vash." The whispered words chased his phantoms back to the dim corners of his mind.

How had Milly known exactly what he was thinking? She and Meryl were both mind readers, he was convinced. He wondered if they ever used those superpowers for their job. It would certainly be a useful asset to have as a journalist. You wouldn't ever have to wonder if someone was telling the truth or not. But, then again, what if that was a separate superpower? Was it a package deal? Could you read minds and gauge truthfulness, or would you just not know if you were being lied to while reading someone's mind?

Ugh. His thoughts were getting inane and scattered, like they often did at this stage of labor when contractions were getting bad enough that he could barely talk through them. The cramps were migrating, spreading outward around his sides to his back, down his inner thighs, up past his belly button. His back pain wasn't quite to the level of "someone just jammed a shotgun barrel into your tailbone and pulled the trigger" yet, but he had a feeling it wouldn't be long before it was. He clumsily reached around to dig his fingers into his skin, right above Wolfwood's calloused thumbs.

"Milly, get Miss Judy to come check him, will you?" he heard Meryl whisper. A shuffle of fabric, the bed rising slightly to his left, and receding footsteps told him that Milly had obeyed.

Judith hadn't been hovering over him nearly as much since they'd come back from the shower. Vash had a sinking feeling Meryl had said something to her. He had thought he was covering his discomfort up pretty good, but having Judith around while he labored had really started making him feel like bugs were wriggling under his skin for reasons unknown to him.

Meryl and Wolfwood hovering over him didn't make him feel the same way, confusingly enough. Sure, Judy had been his doctor all his life, but, well...Meryl and Wolfwood were different. Two people with zero relation to Ship Three who had chosen to stick by Vash's side through one of the lowest moments of his entire life. They had seen him naked and writhing in childbed and heartsick beyond comprehension, and still, they had somehow never left him.

It really made no sense if he thought about it any deeper than that. Judith had also been there for him through tears and pain; she'd kept him from dying of blood loss after Nai had severed his arm. But...the thought of her constantly being here right now, seeing him nauseous and clawing at the bedding and losing his head, it just...rankled for some reason.

He hated himself for feeling relieved that she was giving him a wide berth. She came around every now and then to check the babies' pulses and positions, but other than that, she was keeping her distance.

He hoped she could forgive him one day.

Milly had sensed Vash's stifled unease all on her own about a minute after they'd gotten back and, thinking it was directed toward her, had tried to banish herself from the infirmary until the babies were born.

"One of my sisters always told me she didn't want anyone but her spouse and the midwife in the room when she had her babies, and I wouldn't fault you for feeling the same way." Her smile had been free of judgment, empathetic as it ever was. "I can go back to the waiting room if you need me to."

This foul world did not deserve Milly Thompson. She was an angel. More of an angel than Vash had ever been capable of being.

But, to his surprise, her being here didn't bother him at all. Her sturdy presence at the head of the bed and her airy voice in his ears were a calming balm for his prickling skin that felt two sizes too small. She had mentioned before that she'd helped a few of her sisters and sisters-in-law give birth before; maybe that was part of it. Caring and compassion just seemed to come naturally to her in all areas.

If that was true, though, why was his brain okay with Milly, but not with Judith? Judith cared about him, too. She'd delivered plenty of babies in her lifetime.

Shame hooked through his throat and refused to let go.

As reprieve rose out of the pain once more and Vash went boneless, he felt soft fingers touch the back of his hand, lighter than a feather.

"Just let me know when I can check you, honey," Judith whispered.

Vash gulped in a breath as tears suddenly smarted his eyes, pressing his knuckles up into her touch. "I'm so sorry, Judy—"

"No. You have nothing to be sorry for." She stroked a scar on his wrist with her thumb. Her eyes roved over his face, reflecting quiet remorse. "If anything, I'm the one who needs to apologize for making you feel overwhelmed. I should've noticed I was being a bit much."

"I don't know why I am, though," he said weakly. "I've known you forever, I shouldn't..."

Judith shook her head. "Having a baby is a deeply personal and intimate experience, Vash. Remember when Ophelia was born? Leah wouldn't let anyone but Warren in the room with her. Besides checking her dilation and Ophie's heart rate every now and then, I left her alone until I either heard her call for help or heard that baby crying." She gave him a look of tender reproach. "And as long as everything keeps looking good with you and the babies, I can do the same for you. It's not going to hurt my feelings. Unless they're in danger, it's always the patient's right to decide."

Judith was pretty allergic to bullshitting, so Vash felt like he could trust that she was telling the truth. He nodded, closing his eyes and wiping at his forehead with a floppy hand, letting it rest there after.

"You can check now." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Fatigue pressed his arm back down to the bed; it actually hurt to hold it up any longer. His muscles were sapped.

He heard a soft "alrighty" and the snap of a glove. Without opening his eyes, he shuffled the sheets down and off of one leg, lifting that leg and butterflying his knees open with his heel on the bed. He'd alternated between boxers and no boxers for a while, but he'd finally thrown in the towel and kept them off after his shower so he wouldn't have to struggle in and out of them every time Judith needed to check him.

At least the gown was long enough to keep a shred of his dignity.

Wolfwood's warm, rough fingers slipped into his hand. Pinching pressure stretched his birth canal, and even though it stung, he barely made a sound. He felt Wolfwood lift his hand and kiss it. If he hadn't been so spent, he might have smiled, but it felt like it would've taken such a massive amount of energy to move his face muscles that he just couldn't.

A thin, poky object brushed against his pursed lips. He parted them to let the straw in, sipping liquid that turned out to be peach-flavored juice on autopilot, thankful that Wolfwood and Meryl both had the consideration to never give him apple juice again after he'd tasted it laced with stomach acid so many times in his first trimester.

"Keep some under your tongue for a minute," he heard Meryl say, and with a monotone hum through his nose, he obeyed, letting juice pool under his tongue instead of immediately swallowing. Her small hand smoothed his hair back from his forehead, gentle and repetitive. "Think you could nibble on some plain crackers or something? You haven't eaten in hours."

"Nah hungwy," he slurred around the juice.

"Yeah. I didn't figure you would be. It just may give you a little energy," Meryl explained, encouraging but never pushy.

"Energy is definitely a plus," Milly added.

Vash didn't get a chance to answer again, basking in the relief of Judith's fingers sliding out of him. Oh, that felt so much better.

"You're up to a six now," Judith announced.

Wolfwood made an incredulous noise, Meryl and Milly gasped in perfect unison, and Vash's eyes popped open. Judith was smiling over at him from the biohazard bin, where she was tossing her glove. He swallowed the juice, panting, unsure if his ears were working.

"How many?"

Judith beamed. "Six whole centimeters."

"...really?" He asked in utter disbelief.

"Really really." Judith stepped over to the sink to scrub her hands.

Milly's arm slipped behind his head to hug him. "Oh, Mr. Vash, that's so good!"

Vash brushed the back of his hand against Milly's toned forearm, dumbfounded. Six centimeters was over halfway done. But...how could that be? Already? It felt like he'd only been in labor for about five hours, even though he knew it was far more than that now. He'd probably been in labor since he'd had that bad contraction on the toilet during the previous night. Maybe even before that.

"I could feel baby A's amniotic sac, too," Judith continued, drying her hands. "Your water should break pretty soon."

Vash and Wolfwood exchanged a lightning-fast, knowing glance and said nothing, but Vash had to squish down an illogical and hysterical urge to burst into incriminating giggles.

Judith looked at Wolfwood. "How are his contractions?"

"'Bout seven or eight minutes. It varies. Fifty to sixty seconds long."

Dread settled in Vash's stomach, forcing a willowy sigh from him. "They'll get much longer and closer together once my water breaks. They always do."

And more painful. The thought made him ill. The contractions he'd felt so far were merely uncomfortable compared to what was coming.

He found Judith with eyes that burned when he blinked. "Is that normal?"

Judith's gentle look was reassuring. "It is."

His eyes closed in relief. "Didn't think to ask you last time."

Of course he hadn't. He'd just had a baby way too fast out in the middle of the desert with blistering midday heat pounding down on his back.

Judith's hand pressed at his, comforting. She probably knew what he was thinking. "I'll leave you to it for a while. If you feel like something might be wrong or if you have a question, just call me." She tapped on her pager, then pointed to the other transmitter on the desk.

Once she was gone, Meryl's eyes drifted back to Vash. An inquisitive sadness burned in their navy blue depths, but she didn't give voice to whatever those thoughts in her pretty head were. It was always amazing to be reminded how tactful she was.

Wolfwood, somehow escaping Vash's notice, had disappeared with Judith. He didn't have time to ask where he'd gone, though. Another contraction began building and he wearily breathed his way through it, glad to have Meryl's fingers stroking his hair and her velvety lips brushing his temple.

When it ended, he squirmed.

"Can you help me up, Mil?"

"Certainly, I can. Here..."

 

⁌

 

A cross rasp of sound muffled against Meryl's shoulder. Vash's head was hot and heavy in her arms, almost warm enough to make her sweat like last time, but just like last time, she didn't care. She was propped up in his infirmary bed with the head of it inclined far up so she could lean against it, and Vash was knelt in front of her, belly resting between his knees and hands gripping the pillow behind her back. He refused to put a hand on her.

I would break a bone without even knowing I did it, his exhausted whisper echoed back to her.

Not for the last time, Meryl thanked God that he'd never found out.

Milly was letting them do most of the touching, stating that she didn't want to overwhelm Vash too much, but she did sit at the head of his bed and hum softly. Song after song, she only stopped humming to talk, cooing the kindest words of encouragement to Vash during particularly bad contractions. To Meryl's limited musical knowledge, Milly was pretty on-key, and her humming really was just downright pleasant to listen to, with a filmy, wispy quality to it that was never too jarring or sharp.

Meryl was so grateful to her, she could've just about cried. She was convinced, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Milly's voice and presence were the largest contributing factors keeping Vash's mind present and accounted for. He hadn't had a single flashback yet; at least, no noticeable ones.

Milly was a gift, plain and simple. Roberto would’ve been proud.

Newly returned from wherever he'd gone, Wolfwood set a small bowl and a spoon on the night table next to the bed, then immediately planted one knee on the bed behind Vash so he could slide the hospital gown up, wrap his hands around his hips, and dig his thumbs into his lower back. When he shared a look with Meryl, his eyes were hard, but sympathetic.

Vash was practically quivering with the effort of keeping his voice down. It was subtle, but Meryl detected a ghost of fear in the set of his jaw and shoulders, and it broke her heart. She gently traced one thumb over a crescent of scar tissue on his forearm that she was almost certain came from when he'd bitten himself during labor in New Moab. It wasn't the only scar on his arm like that, either; just the freshest. There was another one further up toward his elbow, much more faded. Ever ready to maximize her sorrow, her mind dumped images on her of Vash curled up in a ball all alone, God knows where, suffering through this unimaginable agony with his arm clamped between bloodied teeth to muzzle himself lest someone discover the Humanoid Typhoon at such a great disadvantage.

He would've been easy pickings.

Finally, Vash's shoulders dropped and he gasped for air, and Meryl glanced at the clock on the wall. They were getting longer already, and his water hadn't even broken yet.

"How far apart?" Wolfwood whispered, sliding the back of Vash's shirt back down.

Meryl pressed Vash's ear over her heart, brushing her lips over his sweaty temple. "Six minutes. Minute and fifteen long."

It was after one in the morning, but just like last time, Meryl was too mentally wound up to feel the late hour. After some careful pilfering around, she had found the controls for the lights in the infirmary and was pleased to discover that they could be dimmed; the rather piercing white of the fluorescent bulbs above them had been turned off, replaced by the softest golden light shining up from recesses around the edges of the ceiling. It reminded Meryl a little too much of a hospital room, because, well, it was, but it was just too late at night for overhead lights, in her opinion. It was bound to be giving poor Vash a headache.

Vash's throat clicked with a parched swallow, prompting Milly to hold the straw in the glass of water he'd been sipping on to his lips. After a couple of good mouthfuls, Vash waved it away, his flesh hand—his whole body, really—wracked with intense tremors the likes of which Meryl hadn't seen since her late grandfather, who'd had Parkinson's disease.

Wolfwood got up from the bed, stirring whatever it was in the bowl he'd brought. "Can't hold still, blondie?"

With an unsteady jerk, Vash shook his head once, leaning back from Meryl with a hitching breath. His jaw muscles were tight; his teeth probably would've been chattering otherwise.

Milly's back straightened. "Are you cold?"

"N-n-no," Vash whuffed out, drinking a staccato breath back in through his nose. Even his breathing was shaking. He wiped his wet face in the crook of his elbow with a restless, wavering sigh. His dark circles were deepening. "Just h-happens."

"Adrenaline's a hell of a drug, huh." Wolfwood sat back down next to Vash on the bed. Meryl could see what was in the bowl now: it looked like applesauce. "You ain't gonna like this, but you need some kinda nutrients in your system to keep you goin'."

Predictably, Vash pulled an immensely displeased face.

"C'mon, angel. Just a few bites," Wolfwood pressed quietly, holding out the spoon handle-first.

Vash shrank away, face suddenly ruddy with what seemed to be shame. "There's n-no way I could h-hold it steady. I'll get it everywhere."

Wolfwood just scooped up a small bite on the spoon and held it out as if to feed Vash, instead. Vash just gave the spoon a look of utter disbelief, as if questioning every life decision that had led up to this moment of Wolfwood offering to spoon-feed him applesauce.

"I h-hate this," Vash muttered, scrubbing a hand over his face.

Wolfwood lowered the spoon back into the bowl. His head shook slightly, eyes narrowed. "I've dug a bullet out of the meat of your ass cheek with my bare fingers before, and me feeding you a spoonful of applesauce is what you get self-conscious over?"

"It's not just that." Vash scrubbed his palm down his thigh as if to wipe clammy sweat away, squaring his shoulders. "I can't stop shaking and I'm so weak and I don't feel like myself and I don't kn-know how to act, because I-I've never h-had—" he cut off with a choke of breath, like a hand had wrapped around his lungs and squeezed. A nervous hand skimmed over his bump.

A burning lump stuck in Meryl's throat. She and Milly exchanged a misty glance. Wolfwood was worrying his lip.

"I'm so used to it...n-not being like this that every time they kick after a contraction, it scares me so much that I want to run away and hide. That's so stupid. What's wrong with me?" All of a sudden, Vash was crying, heaving quiet sobs with a gutted scrunch to his face that pierced straight through something vital in Meryl's chest. "I s-suck at this already, what am I g-gonna do when they're actually here?"

Meryl rose up on her knees, scooting on them to Vash's side so she could hug him to her chest. He leaned into her, a harsh, uneven breath cutting through his stifled sobs.

She wasn't going to fault him for having a wee bit of a breakdown when he was hours away from giving birth twice. His hormones had to be going absolutely bonkers.

Milly's eyes glistened. "Pretty sure every mama who's about to have a baby thinks the same thing, Mr. Vash."

"She's right, needle noggin." Wolfwood squeezed Vash's knobby knee, avoiding the deep, pocked scar just above it on his thigh. He'd been shot there in the past, probably from very close range. Vash's prosthetic hovered over Wolfwood's hand, pinkie finger barely touching his knuckles. God, he was so afraid to touch them. "But, all things considered, I think you're takin' all this in stride pretty well."

"You really are," Milly emphasized.

A minute shake of Vash's head, but he didn't verbally disagree. Meryl reached up to brush a tear off his mottled cheek.

"It's alright to be scared." She looked down and gave Vash's belly the gentlest pat.

(He won't be pregnant much longer, the aching sense of relief for him pricked and twisted at her heart, but somehow, it also made her sad.)

Her voice lowered. "I'm kinda scared of meeting these little beans, myself. I've never held a newborn before, much less been a godmother to two at once."

Wolfwood waved her off. "Kids are tiring, but they're pretty simple to care for. You'll do just fine."

"We'll do just fine," she corrected, placing her hand over Wolfwood's and Vash's hands.

"As fine as wine," Milly declared.

For a split second, Vash's gaze held a contradictory mixture of anguish and unwavering peace. Then he blinked up at Wolfwood. "I...I'll try eating a little if you'll s-still help me."

And Wolfwood's eyes went soft, like the sky just before dawn. "'Course."

It was moments like that, fleeting but powerful, that made Meryl trip and fall head over heels for both of them all over again.

 

⁌

 

Turned out, an offhand wives' tale Wolfwood had heard from Melanie years ago about a spoonful of honey being an energy-giving elixir during childbirth had held a grain of truth, after all. He had mixed some raw honey from the pantry in with the applesauce Milly had suggested, and Vash surprisingly let Wolfwood feed it to him with minimal bitching in tiny spoonfuls, but not before bawling his eyes out over how hard the bees in the apiary had worked to produce said honey. "I'm wasting all their effort! Poor little bees!" he had sobbed, wracked with real, actual guilt, as if the honey hadn't been gathered for the express purpose of, you know, eating it.

Somehow, Wolfwood coaxed him into eating the whole bowl between pitiful sniffles and drinking a pretty respectable amount of water. Who said the Lord didn't still perform miracles?

Now, between contractions that seemed to have reached a plateau at five minutes apart, Wolfwood could already see just how much having some sustenance under his belt was helping Vash feel stronger. His eyes weren't constantly half-lidded and glazed over anymore, and he seemed much more like himself. He even got up to pace around a bit, hunched over with one forearm draped over Wolfwood's shoulder.

"No wonder they call this 'labor'," Vash said through a strained groan, hands braced on the bed, head hung low as he came down from a contraction. Wolfwood let up the pressure on his tailbone, giving his hips a consoling pat. "Feels like it's been weeks."

"Thank goodness it can't actually be weeks." Milly shuddered. "That would be horrid."

"Oh, believe me, agreed."

Wolfwood saw morbid curiosity spark in Meryl's eyes. "Is this one longer than—um." She winced, her hand twitching like she'd narrowly stopped herself from smacking it over her mouth. Her filter was really slipping; Wolfwood needed to bring her some coffee.

Vash pulled the loose neck of the gown up to mop his sweaty face. "How long has it actually been? My brain can't math right now."

Let's see. Supposing it started around the time Vash left the bedroom the morning before to go find Luida, that had been at least five o'clock. Wolfwood glanced at his watch. It was nearing three a.m.

"Shit," Wolfwood sighed. "Probably at least twenty-three hours, now."

"This one's in the running for second longest, then," Vash mumbled. His back and shoulders rose and fell with steady breaths. "First time was over two days."

Milly made a warbling, incredulous little noise in her throat. Meryl's eyes went huge, and Wolfwood's heart jolted like he'd been tapped with a taser. Vash had been in labor for over forty-eight hours, all alone, without even knowing what was happening to him? Jesus Christ, Wolfwood felt sick.

As if he hadn't just dropped a bomb on them that had peppered their hearts with shrapnel, Vash continued. "I don't remember exactly how long the second one was. Probably around twenty hours. It was definitely shorter than the first. Third time..." He reached up to wipe his eye. "Only five."

"Only five hours?" Meryl sounded like there was a hand around her windpipe. Wolfwood damn near felt like it.

"If even that." Vash turned around to sit on the bed, leaning back on his hands with a sigh. "I still don't know why that one went so fast." He gave Wolfwood and Meryl a smile that was more like a grimace, full of pain and regret. "You both know how long the last time was."

Good God in heaven, did they ever. Wolfwood could only be thankful that this time wasn't going to be immediately followed by a double funeral with two tiny graves.

These births were going to be celebrated instead of mourned.

The kids were the pictures of health. Their vitals were strong, and they always wriggled around after Vash's contractions. Wolfwood had been keeping an eagle eye on them with the doppler, per Judith's instructions. She'd told him what to watch for, but there had been zero signs of distress so far. Not even the barest hint. Buddy was sleepily kicking every now and then, and sister, as stubborn as her mama, was still trying to squirm and jerk around just as much as always, as if she were throwing a tantrum over how cramped the space around her was getting the further down into Vash's pelvis she engaged.

She was going to be hell on wheels.

Wisely, Milly changed the subject. "Can we get you anything, Mr. Vash?"

Vash didn't answer right away; he had a strange and unreadable look on his face. He had scooted his backside to the very edge of the bed and his spine was ramrod straight, hands clutching his knees. Wolfwood wondered for a fearful half second if it was possible for him to break his own bones.

"Uffh," a noise of queasy discomfort puffed from Vash's lips, followed by a swallow. Wolfwood saw Meryl eye the small trash bin next to the night table. Fresh sweat beaded on Vash's forehead, and he shifted his hips.

Wolfwood pressed his hand to the small of Vash's back. His shirt was damp and hot. "Feel sick?"

Lord, please, no. Not after he'd finally managed to eat something.

"No, just. I need...I don't know what I need." Vash seemed agitated as he forced out a rough sigh. "Maybe just to keep walking."

And so, they did. Wolfwood and Meryl took turns leading Vash in a slow, back-and-forth plod down the length of the infirmary and back. He had to lean down a good bit more to rest his arm across Meryl's shoulder, but he made it work. Eventually, he started sinking into a half-squat during contractions, anyway, so her short stature didn't really matter.

Milly kept up her little songbird routine, and honestly, from anyone else, Wolfwood would've found it obnoxious, but coming from Milly, it was weirdly relaxing. Especially when she started dipping into old hymns. Miss Melanie had sometimes sung those to him and the other orphans if they weren't feeling well or couldn't sleep, so the sound of those melodies was nostalgic as all get out.

Eerily silent, Vash shuddered in the midst of a pain, hanging off of Meryl with his arms draped around her neck. Wolfwood saw him gulp again, like he was trying not to throw up.

"Hang on, hang on," Wolfwood said under his breath, snatching the trash bin, but Vash shook his head, whining. Meryl held his elbows, her eyes swimming with pity.

"I don't need to...just nauseous and...feel weird," Vash heaved out with labored breaths. The contraction evidently reached a peak, because his fists squeezed tight behind Meryl's neck and he stopped breathing.

Wolfwood dropped the bin and moved to place his hands on Vash's back, but a distressed yelp from Vash sliced the air like a scythe and startled him out of it; stabbing pain rippled from Wolfwood's eardrums down his neck and made his vision swim, and out of the corner of his eye, Milly gasped and slapped her hands over her ears, but that was the last thing on his mind as a gush of cloudy fluid spilled from between Vash's legs.

Hissing out a curse and hearing Meryl do the same, Wolfwood ripped a towel off the stack they'd prepared and hastened to cram it between Vash's thighs. He didn't quite catch the whole waterfall, but a huge mess was...mostly avoided.

Instantly, Vash's whole demeanor intensified, muscles rigid and strained growling leaking from between clenched teeth. He collapsed to one knee, forcing Wolfwood to kneel down and chase his crotch with the towel to keep more amniotic fluid from dripping everywhere. Meryl knelt down behind him and placed her hands on his back, looking a little lost like she had in New Moab. Either that, or slightly dazed from that yelp Vash had let out. She'd been closer than Wolfwood.

Wolfwood shot wide-eyed Milly a pointed look over his shoulder. "Go get granny, big girl."

She nodded, stepped carefully around the spattered puddle of amniotic fluid, and jogged away, brown ponytail swaying.

"Hey. Blondie." Wolfwood's shoulder was cramping from the awkward reach-behind-and-under position he was in, but he wasn't sure he should try to move Vash. He was on his hands and knees now, and Plant markings were spreading down his neck, pulsing erratically and brightening by the second. "Breathe. Outta your lips. You're okay."

Somehow, his words chipped through the haze of static that was probably encasing Vash's brain right now, and Vash sucked a hard breath in through his nose, blowing it steadily out of his lips. Then another, and another. The lizard brain was taking over, probably.

Wolfwood placed his free hand on Vash's too-warm back. It was always freaky, feeling a human-shaped person with a high enough temperature that he should probably be brain-dead. It was a wonder the amniotic fluid hadn't been steaming; the towel was hot and weighty in Wolfwood's hand.

"Thassit, angel. Good breathin'," he spoke quiet encouragement against Vash's hair. "Good job."

"Wonderful, sweetie," Meryl echoed.

Rapid footsteps approached. Judith sank to her knees behind Vash, calm as could be and already pulling a glove on. Milly handed Meryl a wet washcloth, and Meryl planted herself on Vash's other side, spreading the washcloth over the back of his neck and crooning to him softly. Vash angled his head toward her, and the tender sight of them touching foreheads kneaded at Wolfwood's heart.

"Will that happen twice since they're fraternal?" Wolfwood directed at Judith.

"It's hard to say without a sonogram if that was both sacs breaking at once or just baby A's. Sometimes they break at the same time, sometimes individually." Judith waited for Vash to catch his breath. "Vash, I need to—"

"Yeahgoahead," Vash wheezed out in a single breath, hanging his head and spreading his knees a bit further apart. Wolfwood removed the towel for Judith; it came away soaking wet and streaked with thick globs of blood-marbled mucus that were weirdly disconcerting to look at. He spread it on the floor between Vash's legs to catch the pinkish fluid that was still dripping from him and sliding down his quivering inner thighs. 

Wolfwood pushed himself to his feet, giving his soiled hands a glance. He should probably...definitely wash them.

The running sink water didn't quite drown out Vash's winded, thready warbling.

"I always...f-forget how bad it is...right after. Ohshit, ohshit, ohh—Judy, be extra gentle, please."

"I'm so sorry, dear, I'm trying."

By the time Wolfwood had thoroughly scrubbed and was drying his hands and forearms, Milly had thrown another towel over the puddle and was busying herself with cleaning it up, and Judith was helping Vash to his feet with Meryl supporting his other arm. He was paper white and wobbling on shaking legs, holding a fresh towel to his groin with his prosthetic hand, so Wolfwood took over, guiding him over to the bed so he could lie down on his side. It was hard to tell through the billowy hospital shirt, but it seemed like his bump had gotten a bit smaller. With two separate sacs, Wolfwood had to wonder how much of the weight in there had been amniotic fluid.

"She said I'm a little over seven centimeters now." Vash's hand rested on his rounded side, fingers pressing. "Closer and closer, huh." His voice was nervous and raspy, but for the first time in hours, he looked somewhat hopeful, brightening the dismal pessimism in his eyes.

Wolfwood had to press his lips together and bite down on them to steady his turbulent emotions. Bracing himself with the bed railing, he bent down to place a kiss on the side of Vash's nose that tasted like salt and ozone.

"You're doin' real good," he whispered. Meryl snuggled up underneath Wolfwood's arm, and he pulled her close. Her arm slung around his waist, thumb tucking through his belt loop.

"Way better than I'd be doing," she added. "I would be a wreck." 

Vash's laugh was a worn-out scrap of a thing. "I doubt that. You're a lot braver than me, doll."

Meryl made a short, buzzing noise between her teeth. "Incorrect."

"Says the broad who tried to take on Millions Knives with nothin' but a damn pea shooter," Wolfwood muttered, then grunted at the sharp pain that sank into his side. "Oi, get your pointy little knife elbow outta my ribs, woman."

"Broad this, woman that." Meryl wrinkled that pert, cute nose up at him, as smug as the cat that got the cream. "What happened to calling me babe?"

Wolfwood's face burned. With more of himself than Wolfwood had seen in hours, Vash tilted his head and pulled his chin in, squinting up at Wolfwood with his parted mouth tilted sideways in a smirk. "'Babe?'" He repeated with exaggerated incredulity.

"Man, get offa me, I've never called anyone babe in my life," Wolfwood groused, crossing his arms.

"Liar!" Meryl crowed, merrily jostling his upper arm. Absolute little shit, she was. She was lucky she was so pretty and that Wolfwood would kill a man without a second thought if it meant protecting her smile.

Wolfwood aimed a flat look of irritation at a chuckling Vash, who was no help, as he ever was. He just had that grin on his face, though it was exhausted; the stupid, dopey one that made those searing blue eyes crinkle so genuinely at the corners that Wolfwood had to shove down the urge to squirm. Somehow, even sweaty and disheveled and more than halfway to having a baby, Vash looked even prettier than normal.

Judith watched them fondly. "Alright, kids. I'll be right down the hall in the waiting room if you need to call me." As she walked to the door, she looked over her shoulder to Meryl and Wolfwood, then Milly, her gaze pointed and her smile suddenly fainter, serious around the edges. "Take care of him."

Wolfwood heard her unspoken plea loud and clear.

He's about to go through hell. Please, hold him through it.

And silently, he nodded to her.

We will.

The tension left her face, and she nodded back, disappearing through the automatic door of the infirmary.

 

⁌

 

One of the things about Vash that had confused Meryl the most in her first few months of knowing him was his insistence on optimism. Actually, that felt like an inadequate term; it was actually a bit concerning how positive Vash could be, even in the darkest of circumstances. She would've probably called such unrelenting, obstinate positivity "toxic" if that word didn't seem almost too mean to use in reference to someone as sincerely loving as Vash.

No matter what sorts of misfortune had befallen them on their short journey together years ago, Vash had immediately jumped to point out the silver lining, trying to keep everyone's spirits up.

“Hey, now Meryl can catch a nap while we fix the van. She didn't get any sleep last night with all three of us snoring.”

“It's okay that we can't afford separate rooms right now. It'll be like a sleepover.”

“Worm meat has so much protein in it, it's nothing but lean! It's good for you.”

Those were pretty harmless. The worst one she'd heard, though, had been slurred out, forgiving words formed by a barely-healed tongue as Vash wiped bloody drool from his chin with his wrist and smiled up at Meryl with eyes full of turmoil and self-loathing.

“I'm not angry at that man, Meryl. If punching me made him feel even a little bit better about his son's death, then I'm glad he did it.”

Insane. That one wandered somewhere between toxic positivity and emotional masochism as deep and fathomless as the far reaches of space, but the point still stood.

The one time Meryl had seen that positivity crack had been in New Moab, cleaved in half by a hushed, almost disgusted “fuck this.”

It had scared her so much, at the time, to realize that Vash the Stampede's armor wasn't impenetrable, after all.

Yet, even then...even then, he'd cobbled together a broken smile for them afterward. That smile was branded into Meryl's memory forever, so grieved and anguished. She could barely think of it, or the words he'd said afterward, without crying.

It was heavy on her mind now as she held Vash's head in her lap, his body curled up tight in travail on his infirmary bed, muffling half-aborted screams into her pillow that should've scraped serrated knives down her eardrums, but didn't.

(Luida, with a scary amount of foresight, had pulled Meryl and Wolfwood and Milly into her office a few days prior and handed them each a set of high-tech earplugs.

"They're some of the most advanced earplugs mankind has managed to produce so far," she'd said, showing them how to fit the little contraption and its battery pack in and around their ears. It reminded Meryl of a funnel, or a hearing aid. "Normal things like speech or even shouting won't be detected, but anything above or below a certain frequency will either be dampened accordingly or filtered out completely."

Wolfwood held one earplug up and peered through it with one eye at the overhead light, like a miniature telescope. "Pardon my country boy ignorance, madam doctor, but what purpose does earplugs that don't block out all loud noises serve, exactly?"

Luida went quiet, seeming to consider if she should even answer. Finally, she did.

"These are SEEDS-issued earplugs. They were designed for Plant engineers, to be worn in the event of a Last Run."

Meryl's blood ran cold, and Wolfwood nearly dropped the earplug. Milly looked confused and frightened.

"The fuck do you mean, Last Run? You know somethin' we don't?" Wolfwood barked.

Milly was gripping her chest. "Mr. Vash isn't going to...to...is he...?"

Instantly, Luida was shaking her head and waving her hands. "No, absolutely not. I didn't mean to imply that. But, I know you two" she gestured to Meryl and Wolfwood "are painfully aware that this isn't going to be easy on him. When Plants are distressed, they can generate sound waves that a human's auditory system can barely comprehend, much less properly process. That goes for Independent Plants, too." A ghost of something like regret passed through Luida's eyes. "Vash is terrified that he's going to give you hearing or brain damage if he loses control of himself during labor, and I hate to say it, but his fears aren't completely unfounded. If enough of his extradimensional power leaks through his gate and he's too distracted by pain to rein it in, all three of you could be permanently deafened."

"Oh, my God," Milly whispered.

Unbidden, the memory of how nauseous and disoriented Vash's screams during labor had sometimes made Meryl feel shoved its way into her mind. She'd never felt anything like it before meeting Vash.

"He was pretty quiet last time," Wolfwood mumbled in protest, probably feeling just as leery and uncomfortable as Meryl about wearing such earplugs right in front of Vash. It felt rude, somehow. Dehumanizing. "Why's he so worried this time?"

And Luida had tilted her head, almost as if she was perplexed that Wolfwood didn't get it. "He had to be quiet last time, Nicholas."

Wolfwood looked positively stricken.

Luida's lips pursed on a pitying smile. Without another word, she'd left them to stew in what she'd said. Or rather, the truth that she'd left unspoken, but was all the louder for it.)

Vash had done all he could to choke down his pain in silence for twenty-four hours and a handful of change, but at two o'clock in the morning, eight and a half centimeters dilated, it finally broke him.

Maybe he'd finally noticed the earplugs that Meryl and Wolfwood and Milly had discretely put in their ears while he wasn't paying attention after his water had broken; maybe he just couldn't physically hold back anymore. Either way, during a contraction so harsh that Vash's prosthetic hand snapped the plastic-encased metal railing of the bed in half like it was a twig, Plant markings surged all over his body at the speed of light itself, bright-white enough to burn afterimages into Meryl's vision, and his tortured scream carved a neat, instantaneous crack through every single glass object in the infirmary.

The switched-off fluorescent bulbs overhead violently buzzed on and spit sparks, then blinked back out less than two seconds later.

Vash apologized profusely in the aftermath during the brief period of lucidity that came between contractions that were edging toward three minutes apart now, and even though they'd all insisted they were fine, and that yes, Vash, the earplugs have fresh batteries, Luida double and triple checked them, there was a deeply-buried and terribly human part of Meryl that feared the cosmic power Vash was capable of producing. She could tell Wolfwood was rattled by it, too; no physical signs, but she could see it in his eyes. Milly, having not been at July, looked less afraid and more in awe. Meryl didn't blame her.

And it was still so heart-poundingly close, that power. Just a hair away. Even though Vash had muffled every cry and groan and screech since then into Meryl's pillow and the earplugs kept the harmful frequencies neatly filtered, she swore could still feel the uncanny way the air vibrated around Vash's head through her fingertips, the sickening ripples his louder cries seemed to make in the very fabric of known reality.

She would never, ever tell him that, though. Some things didn't need to be voiced aloud.

While she was glad they could be as close to Vash as they wanted without putting their hearing in danger, that gross, twisty feeling in her gut was slowly creeping in, frustratingly familiar. The same one from New Moab. The same one from that cramped elevator in July, where she'd been powerless to keep Roberto's life from slipping away right before her eyes.

Vash was in excruciating pain, and she couldn't do a single thing to stop it from happening. It seemed wildly unfair that she wasn't able to just take it away for him, to snap it out of existence. If she could've somehow borne the agony of his labor on her own body, she would've done so without a millisecond of hesitation. She wouldn't have cared if he protested, either. Better her than him.

But, though the feeling of helplessness was the same at its core, it also wasn't the same, because the stomach-turning reality that there was nothing she could do to prevent Vash's babies from being born dead was completely absent, and in its place was the most radiant and emotional anticipation.

Because the babies weren't dead. They were beautifully, wonderfully alive, with hardy little pulses and textbook-perfect vital signs.

This time, Meryl didn't have to wonder how in the blazing hell Vash could muster up a little smile when he caught her worried gaze between contractions. That smile wasn't full of heartbreak and grief anymore.

He was still going through a dark tunnel full of suffering, but this time, the light at the end wasn't cold and cruel. It was warm, full of new life, of the promises of hope and love.

This time, Meryl had no trouble smiling back.

 

⁌

 

Vash had a woefully sharp memory, not quite photographic like Nai's but definitely inhumanly good, and yet still, with every labor he'd ever been through including this one, he always managed to forget how fucking unbearable this stage was until he was smack-dab in the middle of it and struggling to keep his head above water.

His skin was crawling with goosebumps. His stomach was roiling and cramping with frenzied nausea. He was so overheated that he was panting like a parched dog, and it felt like someone had taken a hacksaw to his tailbone. Every deep, hard clamp of his uterus rolled down through him with unbelievable force, cranking up the pressure on his pelvic floor. The baby was precariously low, right in the bowl of his pelvis, and the grind of her little head behind his pubic bone with every contraction felt like cement on cement. Unstoppable force meets immovable object.

And yet, it almost seemed like things weren't quite as immovable as they'd been in his memory. Especially with the first fetus and the very last one; both had felt like trying to shove a cylindrical wooden block toy through a triangle-shaped hole. He was pretty sure he'd burst a few capillaries in his eyes the first time with how hard he'd had to push to get her out. They'd been bloodshot for days afterward.

This time, if he wasn't hallucinating (and he was so exhausted that he very well might be), it felt like the bones of his pelvis were actually stretching, ever-so-slowly wedging apart around his daughter. He wasn't sure if or how that was possible, but he was very sure that he didn't want to think about it, or the couple of marbles he was still clinging onto might drop out of his head and roll away screaming.

Currently, he had one knee planted on a towel-covered pillow next to his infirmary bed and the other knee spread wide with his heel on the floor, hands gripping the bed railing and avoiding the snapped section further up toward the pillows. The only thing besides Wolfwood's strong hands that had come close to lessening the agony in his lower back so far was this position, leaning deeply down into each contraction with his forehead pressed into the mattress and his belly nearly touching the floor. It sure as hell didn't make the two-ton weight on his pelvic floor any lighter, but he could handle pressure. This position shifted the baby forward a bit and kept her from pressing so relentlessly on his tailbone.

She hadn't even fully moved down past it yet. Ohh, mercy.

He'd felt back pain countless times throughout his life for one reason or the other, but there was something about this very specific and situational pain that was worlds worse than a broken bone. A broken bone lasted for a few seconds, then tapered to a different sort of pain in the aftermath. This pain was like...like the sensation of a snapping bone dialed up to a thousand and prolonged over minutes, whiting his vision out and making him dry-heave.

Absolutely nasty. He wouldn't wish this pain on Legato fucking Bluesummers.

Though, he suspected Wolfwood probably would.

Thank goodness for Milly's soft, pretty humming, always present but never obtrusive. She was a genuine godsend. It was a very real, very scary possibility that he might have lost it by now if it weren't for her.

A misery-laced moan bubbled from his throat, cut off by a reflexive swallow. His breath shook from his nose afterward. Meryl, to his right, tucked an emesis basin under his chin, but he'd already puked up a lovely, murky cocktail of water and juice and dregs of applesauce several minutes before, so it wasn't like there would be much in there for her to catch.

Something frigid touched his lips, and he mechanically accepted the ice cube into his mouth, chewing. It squeaked and crunched between his teeth, cold water trickling down his throat to wet it. Meryl's fingers threaded through the back of his hair, and he managed a hum of thanks. She was so sweet.

Something hard, the gel-smeared wand of the handheld doppler, pressed into his belly above his pubic bone—when had Judy taught them how to use it...?—and he cringed and held his breath. A wash of empty static spat from the doppler's speaker before the faint wobble of a heartbeat.

"She's getting so low it's hard to hear her," Wolfwood murmured.

Yeah, Vash didn't doubt it. His hips felt like they could dislocate with how far down in there she was lodged.

He was getting closer and closer to pushing, and yet, the all-consuming terror he'd fully expected to feel was nowhere to be found. There was only a groaning sense of dread at the long road of toil ahead of him, akin to standing at the bottom of a mesa that had to be climbed barehanded. Baby girl was pretty little, but she sure didn't feel little, and it was going to take ridiculous amounts of energy to get her out of him. Energy he wasn't sure he had enough of.

And then he had to do it all again a second time.

Could he actually do this? Was he—

No, no. He shook his head at himself, flicking sweat from his brow. He always thought that at this stage, and he always got through it. He could do this. It just wouldn't be easy.

The next contraction wrung his uterus tight, squeezing down and burning white-hot through his lower back. He quickly let go of the railing with one hand to slam his fist against the side of the mattress and arch his back down into the pain, unable to hold back the throaty bellow that bullied its way from his lungs.

A split second of absolute horror seized his heart before giving way to staggering relief when he remembered the earplugs keeping the others' eardrums safe. Thank God for Luida, she was so smart.

"Now there's a good strong noise." Wolfwood's hands gripped Vash's hips and lower back, holding him together at the seams. "Get some air in, needle noggin. Ain't havin' you pass out on us."

Unconsciously, Vash angled his head toward Meryl, breathing along with her exaggerated inhales and exhales as best he could with his uterine muscles as hard as a rock. He could see her nodding vigorously in his peripheral vision.

"Good, Vash, that's so good. C'mon, in and blow out. Through your—there you go, perfect." She bathed his forehead and neck with a wet washcloth, and the shock of cold became an amazing mental anchor, because the worst of the contraction crushed him between its teeth, knocking the wind clean out of him for a good ten seconds. His nails bit into the flesh of his palm, and he held his breath, tasting iron.

Through buzzy ringing between his ears, Vash heard Wolfwood make a very parental noise, like a dad that had just caught sight of his kid about to touch a hot stove burner. "Hey, hey, no! Don't bite your tongue, dumbass! Just yell if you gotta!"

"Shut the fuck up!" The deep, livid snarl tore from Vash's throat and escalated into a multi-toned shriek that made his esophagus feel raw. When the contraction tapered off and the pain in his throat yanked him back to reality, tears blurred his vision. He coughed weakly. "Nick, I'm—"

Wolfwood was already cupping the back of his neck and pressing their temples together with a rueful sigh. "Don't be."

Meryl snorted. "Maybe he deserved it."

"Pipe down, you."

"Uh, hey," Vash managed to croak out before they could buckle down and start arguing for real, feeling chilled and lightheaded in the dizzying fallout of the contraction. "I think I need to pee."

Or at least, he was pretty sure that was what the abrupt, needle-sharp twinge he'd just felt somewhere above his pubic bone was telling him.

Instantly, their attention was on him and nothing else. Meryl held a towel to his groin and Wolfwood helped him inch his way to his feet. His knees shook and creaked like worn-out car jacks. He wrapped one arm under his belly, trying in vain to take some of the weight off his back.

"Nah, fuck this," Vash heard Wolfwood say under his breath, and the next thing he knew, he was being lifted into Wolfwood's arms and cradled close like a child who'd broken their ankle. The urge to protest ebbed and receded. He was too tired to maintain any semblance of pride. He squished his cheek on Wolfwood's shoulder, feeling all the exhaustion of the last twenty-something hours wash over him anew and soak into his bones.

He wished he could sleep for about thirty-six hours straight.

Meryl had hastily tucked the towel up under his butt when Wolfwood picked him up, but now, she was staring between his legs, and the look on her face pumped sluggish alarm through Vash's veins. "You're bleeding."

His heart nearly jerked up into his esophagus. "Huh?"

With rushed steps and muttered swearing, Wolfwood carried Vash to the adjoining infirmary washroom, which was thankfully much bigger than the one in his own room, and set him down on the toilet like he was the world's most delicate flower. He saw Milly hesitantly peeking around the corner, as if she was unsure whether or not she should be present.

Sure enough, when Meryl pulled the towel away from his birth canal, it was stained bright red.

Vash swallowed back a mini surge of nausea at the sight. He could hear liquid—more amniotic fluid—dripping into the water in the toilet bowl, but he couldn't feel it. Nothing below a certain threshold of sensation even registered to him anymore with baby girl's head prying his hips apart. He parted his legs around his stomach and leaned forward, clutching his knees and tightly shutting his eyes. Another contraction was on its way.

He could hear Meryl asking from somewhere very far away if this was normal. Even if he hadn't been struck mute by the building contraction, he didn't really have an answer for her. He was pretty sure none of his labors before now could be classified as normal.

"I'm gettin' granny," he heard Wolfwood's antsy mumble as it receded away out of the room.

Meryl's hands closed around Vash's wrists, gently lifting his hands away from his knees. He clenched his fists, breathing hard and uneven. Her voice was coaxing and low. "Try to breathe with me."

God, it was so hard to. Vash hung his head and rocked back and forth, cold sweat prickling his forehead and dripping off the end of his nose. "Can't," he grated out, rigid and airless. His pulse pounded in his temples. The pain escalated so fast, he had no hope of bracing himself or panting through it; it was too forceful, like a vice keeping his lungs sucked downward and preventing them from inflating. All he could do was tremble.

The cold washcloth mopped at his forehead, and Meryl's other hand rubbed up and down the length of his backbone. "I know it hurts, sweetie. Be loud if you need to, you won't hurt us."

He almost couldn't drum up the lung power to cry out, but he somehow found some when the contraction peaked. For a split second of hysterical insanity, he almost wanted to laugh at how bad it hurt, but instead, it came out in a deep, dragging groan that he could barely hear over the combo of ringing and whooshing blood in his ears.

his knees slipped on hot blood and viscera, he gripped the jagged rim of the bathtub and vomited over the side

The lightest, gentlest humming cut cleanly through the building memory like a sword through paper. Oh...he recognized this song. He'd heard it so long ago, but the melody had stuck firmly in his head. He couldn't remember the lyrics. Something about...faithfulness, and new mercies.

The contraction finally began to lessen, but not nearly enough. The pain was constant now. No reprieve even when he wasn't contracting. The ache never left, stretching up his sides and ribs and wrapping around his thighs like iron, and oh, God, his back, his fucking back, he felt so sick.

Meryl's hands cupped his face. "Vash, look at me."

He did. Dazedly, he wondered why she looked so worried. But it finally hit him that he should probably breathe at some point, so he sucked the air in through his nose just like she was doing, following her lead. God, her eyes were so beautiful. Like the sky at midnight.

When the contraction ended, he slumped forward against a strong pair of hands that was either Wolfwood or Milly, distantly mesmerized by the way his knees were shaking. It was actually impossible to keep them still. He barely registered the prod of the doppler wand into his lower belly, then higher up.

The steady plip plop plunk of liquid landing in the toilet filled his ears, like a spicket that hadn't been turned all the way off.

"Vash." A couple of light slaps thumped his thigh. Judy. "You need to talk to me, if you can. Are you feeling any unusual pain in your lower abdomen? Are you lightheaded?"

"Uh," he wavered, reaching up to rub his sweat-slick face. His senses trickled back to him, and he found Judith kneeling in front of him with that forcibly clinical look in her eyes. Meryl wrung her hands behind her, and Wolfwood was holding him up. Milly was pale as a ghost beside him.

Vash forced his minced-up brain matter to work with his tongue, taking stock of how he felt. "Maybe, I don't know, I thought...I just needed to pee, but I guess not," he said faintly. On reflex, he reached underneath himself to feel, and when he brought his hand back up, there was sticky, pigmented blood soaking his fingers, settling in the creases.

Before he could even utter an "oh, shit", his head suddenly whirled and his stomach swooped; he was being swept up off the toilet into Wolfwood's arms.

 

⁌

 

Wolfwood did his damndest to keep his eyes forward, but his ears still heard every drop of Vash's blood that plipped onto the floor in an uneven trail as he rushed him to the bed with an ashen-faced Meryl and Milly flanking them. Vash didn't seem to notice much of anything; his eyes were feverish and unfocused, and his Plant markings were so incandescent they were almost hard to look at.

He was in the absolute worst of it now. Wolfwood remembered that vacant look like it was yesterday.

Oh, Father, help him, he mouthed, breath clicking in his dry throat.

As he laid Vash down in the bed, heedless of the fact that blood would stain the white sheets, Judith yanked Vash's shirt up and smeared various parts of his belly in conductive gel, her other hand flying over the controls of the ultrasound machine. She cursed at the crack in the screen, but breathed a sigh when it lit up like normal after a few struggling blinks.

"Keep praying, preacher," she whispered to Wolfwood. "We might be headed for the operating room."

Milly made a wobbling, nauseated noise. Meryl threw her arms around her newbie, and Wolfwood crushed both of them to his chest with his bloody fist turned away from their clothes, burying his face in Meryl's hair and squeezing his eyes shut in supplication. Meryl's arm tightened desperately around his waist.

It seemed like an eternity passed before Judith said, with great relief, "No signs of rupture anywhere. I think it's just a cervical tear."

All three of them slumped against each other, and Wolfwood could've fallen to the floor right there. "Thank You," he whispered. Meryl moaned through a sigh. Milly was silent and shaky.

Vash keened, startling the trio out of each other's arms and locking their attention back on him; he was tense as a bowstring and sweating bullets.

"I gotta push, Judy—" he ground out, loud and ragged and uncontrolled.

Judith's eyes hardened like chips of jade. She jammed the ultrasound wand back onto its holder and wrested a latex glove from the box at the end of the bed. "Okay, honey, just. Just try to hold on—"

Vash's flesh palm clapped over his mouth. He twisted the pillowcase behind his head in his prosthetic hand; Wolfwood knew before it even happened that it was going to rip. He loosely wrapped his arm around Vash's quivering knee, helplessness wrenching his guts.

Suddenly, Vash's belly sank inward. Wolfwood's gaze jerked to his face; his eyes were pinched shut, his face and neck beet red with strain and his sharp teeth clenched. He'd left streaks of his own blood across his left cheek.

"Grannyyy," Wolfwood said warily.

"It's alright," Judith soothed in a tone that said it was probably not very alright.

In the fifteen-ish seconds that Vash silently pushed, Wolfwood was certain he'd never felt more tightly-wound in his entire life. He traced his thumb over the bump of Vash's kneecap, watching Meryl's smaller fingers do the same on the ball joint of his shoulder. The hummed, haunting melody of "Be Still, My Soul" softly filled the air.

It felt like Wolfwood was coming up for air himself when a sucking gasp finally expanded Vash's chest and he grappled for breath. Huge, neon-bright eyes darted between the four of them.

"Couldn't help it I'm sorry," Vash gasped in a single breath, but Judith patted his knee.

"That's okay, hon. I need to—"

Vash bulldozed over her. "Please, hurry."

At least Judith had some haste about her; she was in and out within ten skillful seconds. Vash gnawed his lip through it until blood stained his teeth, and the two fingers of Judith's glove came out of his birth canal dripping bright red.

"That's an awful lotta blood..." Milly's voice was a bit thin.

Judith swapped her glove out for a fresh one. "I have to look in there with a speculum, Vash, I'm sorry."

What in God's name was a speculum?

Vash just nodded, trembling from head to toe. Wolfwood held his hand briefly, dotting it with a couple of kisses. Milly rubbed up and down his upper arm, while Meryl gently cleaned the blood from his cheek and hand.

Judith plucked some kind of metal tool from the tray of instruments she had prepared hours ago and lubed it up, and for fuck's sake, Wolfwood had never seen a more unsettling-looking medical instrument that hadn't been specifically designed to cut or stab or torture in some way. Vash made a horrendous noise when she inserted it, and Wolfwood's blood pressure just about shot through the roof. Only a heartbreakingly gentle pat on his wrist from Vash held him back from lunging for Judith and yanking her away hard enough to tear her arm from its socket.

"I'm fine," Vash wheezed. "Calm down."

Wolfwood bared his teeth down at him. "Can you worry about yourself for five fucking—"

"Yeah," Judith sighed, shining her pen light up into Vash's pried-open birth canal. "One lateral cervical tear. Not huge, but it's there."

"Oh, no," Milly whispered.

Vash was still struggling for breath. "How serious is that," he panted.

"Not ideal, but the good news is you're not hemorrhaging. The bleeding has already slowed down to almost nothing because of your healing abilities. Her head compressing those blood vessels is also helping." Judith gently removed the speculum, and Vash collapsed, limp as a wet handkerchief. "I'm just concerned about further tearing once she's stretching it even more."

A staccato little whimper left Vash's throat.

"But, hey. If it helps, she has a lot of pretty hair."

Vash, Meryl, Milly, and Wolfwood all snapped to attention and demanded "What color?!" at such a simultaneous instant that it was an absolute hoot looking back on it.

Judith grinned, smug. "I'll let you find out for yourself. Right now, I need you to tell me if you want me to stay, Vash." She placed her hands on the railing, then raised an amused eyebrow down at it when she realized it was snapped in half. "Your blood pressure and heart rate are holding steady, and the babies' vitals are perfect. You can still do this without my intervention. You're fully dilated and effaced."

Meryl's eyes found Wolfwood's, bright with panicked excitement.

After a few seconds of contemplative panting, Vash gave Judith a beseeching, telling look, nearly in tears already. "I'm sorry, Judy."

"Hush." She flapped her hand. "That's all I needed. Oh, wait. Here, this might help." She walked over to the control panel for the lights, flipping a switch that caused a bright shaft of light from the ceiling to beam down on Vash's lower half. "Diagonal lighting. You won't be blinded, but you'll be able to see what's happening down there much better when it's go time."

"Which one is that?" Wolfwood asked, squinting over at the control panel.

"Second from the left on the bottom." She switched it back off.

Meryl smiled. "Thanks, Miss Judy."

"Any time. I'll go to the waiting room and give the others an update." Judith grinned. "Brad is going to wear a trench in the floor if he keeps pacing much longer, so I think it would do them all good to hear something."

For a second, Vash's eyes flickered with fondness, then steely resolve as he pressed his fingertips to the underside of his belly. "Tell them...I'm okay, and she's close."

Wolfwood had to take a breather, hearing that. Ohh, Lord.

"Ten-four. Good luck." Judith saluted, then she was gone.

With a centering inhale and exhale, Vash looked up at his companions, pouring sweat and shaking, and had the audacity to fucking grin like he'd just told a corny joke. God, Wolfwood could punch straight through a brick wall. Either out of disbelief or sheer adoration, he wasn't too sure.

"I love you all so much," Vash rasped up at them softly.

Milly's face creased up like she might burst into tears, but she was smiling. Wolfwood's eyes briefly found Meryl, and yeah, she was just as besotted as he was, so in love she was practically glowing. He wrapped an arm around her, tucking her petite frame close.

"Ditto," he managed to whisper back.

He didn't miss the sweet, conspiratorial look Meryl and Vash shared.

 

⁌

 

Even with each contraction knifing through Vash's middle and back with unrelenting intensity, barely spaced two minutes apart now, he almost felt like he had to pinch himself to make sure he was really here.

He'd never gotten this far before. The babies were still kicking him between contractions. They were alive, and they were about to be born into the adoring arms of their parents and aunt. He felt so blessed that he might actually cry about it later.

However, as momentous and miraculous an occasion as this was, it didn't make it any more bearable.

"Holy shit," Vash yowled, digging his forehead into his pillow and grabbing for something that wasn't a human arm. He heard a pop and a shred; dammit, that was the mattress, wasn't it?

Meryl said something encouraging to his left, but he couldn't have repeated it back to her verbatim if someone had held a gun to his head. The chilly washcloth bathed the back of his neck and his bare shoulders; he'd ripped the hospital shirt nearly in half trying to get it off in a fit of hormonal rage two contractions ago. He couldn't be asked to feel ashamed that his bits were probably on full display in this position, curled over on widely spread knees at the raised head of the bed. He was hurting way too badly to care.

In fact, the strong, steadfast pressure of Wolfwood's thumbs, Meryl's precious words of support, and Milly's quiet humming might have been the only things keeping his mind in reality right now.

He couldn't not push anymore. His body was heaving, bearing down with barely any input from him. Even if he could resist, it almost didn't matter anymore; his contractions were so brutally strong that they would've probably moved baby girl down whether he helped them out or not. He could feel every minute downward slide of her solid little form, and it made his stomach twist and drop with dry nausea. The pain in his lower back had reached an all-time high, like a pulled-taut rubber band threatening to snap at any moment.

God, there was just so much pain in so many places. The ligaments on his sides screamed with every contraction. His eyes were throbbing in their sockets in tandem with his pulse. His whole torso hurt like he'd been beaten with a club, and the hot, tight ache in his absolutely-not-a-breast was the maddening little cherry on the agony sundae. He felt like a pile of suns-baked roadkill on a dusty street.

Suddenly, the contractions did that awful thing where they overlapped with each other, giving him zero break in between and crushing his tailbone to the max, and though he knew he couldn't damage the others' hearing through inhuman means, he still felt a nebulous twinge of pity for their eardrums when his throat actually burned from how hard he screamed through pushing. Short, rasping cries of fear seized his lungs afterward.

"Aughh, aghhfuck—oh, God, help me," Vash sobbed through chesty gusts of breath, clawing at the head of the bed and ultimately having a crumb of sense enough to just grab his ulna, something he couldn't break unless he dipped into his power reserves.

And at first, he thought the muted, crunching crack he heard was his arm and felt a distant exasperation over how mad Brad would be that he'd broken it, but then, ice poured up his back to pool at the base of his skull, and his vision went grey.

"...God, I heard that, what was..."

"...think I should get..."

"...never passed out last..."

Patchy sound filtered back in, and Vash realized he was being held upright by Wolfwood's hands around his upper arms. Dark eyes hardened by worry roved over his face, and he stupidly thought of how handsome Nicholas was. Meryl was wiping his cheek and chin with the rag; the bittersweet smell of bile burned his nose. He must've dry-heaved. Milly was giving him a scared look over her shoulder, turned toward the infirmary entrance with every muscle in her five-foot-eleven frame tensed up and ready to sprint.

"...with us, needle noggin?"

Vash shook his head and squeezed his stinging eyes shut briefly, reaching up a wobbly hand to mold it to his forehead. Even to his own hand, it felt scorching hot.

"No, you're not? Is that what you're saying?"

"Yeah. No, I mean...yeah, I'm with you." Vash swallowed weakly through a puffing little gag and let out a sigh that trembled through the air.

That was exactly what he'd been afraid of happening ever since Judith told him how big these babies were going to be. He remembered damn well exactly how it had felt the first time. A sensation like that was impossible to forget.

He didn't have any time to worry about it, though. Judith couldn't do anything about a broken tailbone. Best to wait and tell her after both babies were out, so her inevitable freak-out could at least be postponed. It wasn't all bad, he supposed distantly. Even though the pain was making him queasy, it might give him more room to get the babies out.

Honestly, he didn't remember those next few minutes looking back on it later. He knew he was steadily bearing down a couple of times with each contraction and that Meryl was quietly counting the seconds for him, but other than that, he was on autopilot. His brain had officially flown the coop.

What finally yanked him painfully and unceremoniously back to full consciousness was a shallow gasp and five words from Meryl.

"I think I saw her!"

Chills exploded down Vash's arms like a live charge. He jerked his gaze to Meryl, who had been leaned over to look up underneath him and was now gaping up at him with huge, starry eyes.

"Really?" He whispered, daring to hope. He looked over his shoulder, sucking a shuddering breath in through his nose. "Nick, h-help me turn over...ow, ow ow..."

While Wolfwood helped him prop himself nearly upright against the head of the bed and get as comfortable as someone who was about to push baby one of two out could be, Milly ran to flip on the light Judy showed them (which Wolfwood had so maturely dubbed the "pussy beam"), and Meryl fetched the handheld mirror Judy had given them a few hours ago.

A few hours ago. Vash reeled. That felt like three days ago. He tipped his face toward the ceiling and pinched his eyes shut, letting himself well up and feel absolutely wretched for a few seconds.

"I don't know how much longer I can do this," he found himself confessing wetly under his breath.

Wolfwood's lips met his temple, and ever so gently, he cupped Vash's sore belly in his palm. "I know, darlin'...but you're almost at a break. Think you can hang on for baby girl and little man?"

Vash hummed high and monotone through his nose, nodding and knocking his temple against Wolfwood's forehead. Tired words slurred from his mouth. "F'iss for them, I c'n do anything."

Another kiss touched his beauty mark. "That's our angel."

"I know it might not be easy to concentrate, but," Meryl huffed as she climbed up onto the bed and held the hand mirror down near the bed, angling it so that Vash's birth canal was framed in it. "Try to watch next time you push. Can you see?"

Despite their efforts to keep him relatively clean, Vash's crotch and inner thighs were still streaked with blood. His petals were fully bloomed open and sticky with the pinkish mix of amniotic fluid and blood he was still constantly leaking, and though the slit of his birth canal was still closed, he could tell that his daughter's round little head was just inside, bulging him outward. He reached down to tuck his middle finger inside and nearly gasped.

She couldn't have been more than an inch up in there.

A sudden storm of energy swept over him with whirling intensity. He’d never snapped to perfect lucidity so fast in his life.

That was his baby girl's head he was feeling under his fingertip, her tiny skull solid and her hair sticky-wet. His chest fluttered with a confusing maelstrom of grief and joy.

"I-I feel her." He gaped up at his companions, astounded. "I can feel her hair, oh my God."

Not astounded enough to not feel the next contraction, though, ow, fuck—

And when he pulled back his thighs for leverage and bore down with gritted teeth while staring into the mirror Meryl held, he nearly stopped pushing in complete, stupefied amazement, because his birth canal parted around his daughter's head, giving him a glimpse of the hair he'd just felt, nestled among twitching, bloodstained petals of flesh. His energy redoubled; he pushed as strongly as he could, then fumbled for a stray towel when he stopped, hastily but oh so gently wiping at the visible sliver of hair protruding from him to remove a little of the blood and fluid and God knew what else.

Even though it was still wet and filthy, he could now see that her hair was vaguely light-colored, and it made tears sting his eyes.

Milly sucked in a delighted gasp. "Oh, look!"

"She's blonde!" All of a sudden, Meryl was dashing tears away with the backs of her hands, her voice trembling. "She's blonde like her mama!"

Vash turned wide eyes to Wolfwood, who had just snatched the air in his fist with a hissed out "yes!" and was now scrubbing his hand over his face like he was trying not to tear up himself.

"We're gonna have two blondies," he said roughly.

Meryl patted sweat from Vash's forehead with the washcloth, sniffling. "Oh, Vash, you're nearly through now, she's just there."

Vash's heart pounded.

Meryl was right. Their baby girl was right there. So close that he could see her, and not through layers of skin and muscle this time. He was looking at the top of her little bitty head, the same head that had been crammed against his bladder for the past couple of weeks.

She was real.

He panted through a throat that felt too small, head spinning with endorphins and exhaustion.

Please, please, give me the strength to get them both out.

 

⁌

 

The back of Vash's head hit the pillows, his lips parted with desperate panting that made the globe of his belly rise and fall sharply. There was a glazed, distant look in his eyes, like a trapped animal. Wolfwood couldn't fathom how much pain he was in right now any more than he could fathom that his daughter's little round head was currently wedged between Vash's legs and inching further and further out to meet them with every mighty push her mother gave.

Vash's lips closed around the straw Milly offered to suck in a hasty sip of water, then he was pushing again, neck tendons popping out and sweat glittering on his face and collarbones and bioluminescent markings searing. Jesus, he was beautiful. Was that a weird thing to think right now? He really was, though. Strong and gorgeous. He'd been through hell and back five times, had buried five stillborn babies, and yet here he still was, throwing his all into giving life to his sixth and seventh children.

"Who's catching her?" Meryl's question snapped him out of his introspection.

"Uh. Well." He looked to Vash, who was panting in between contractions. Vash gave him a willowy half smile.

"I don't mind either way." Poor guy, his voice was a complete wreck, cracking and whistling. He sounded like he had the world's worst sore throat.

"Hmm." Meryl crossed her legs underneath her, still holding the mirror for Vash. "Nick, you have more experience with this kind of stuff—"

Wolfwood leaned back and held up his hands. "Whoa there, missy, I ain't never delivered a baby, either—"

"You've at least held a baby. Or, y'know, just been within twenty feet of one in general." Meryl's cheeks washed pink. "So, what I'm asking is, will you catch her so I can watch how you do it? Then I can catch him."

Wolfwood's blood raced through his veins.

"Seems like sound logic to me," Milly offered.

"Myep," was Vash's breathless contribution before he was pushing again, huffing and puffing and red in the face. He'd stopped closing his eyes to push, like he could hardly take his eyes off the baby's head pulling him open, even though it had to hurt like hell.

Wolfwood knew how he felt. Don't get him wrong, this was pretty grisly as far as bloody, nasty affairs went, but it was strangely mesmerizing, too, watching his daughter's little noggin moving and sliding within Vash's birth canal as his crazy powerful uterine muscles worked to move her downward and outward.

He understood now why people called childbirth a miracle. Seemed to him that there was no way an entire baby should be able to fit through human hips, even hips that were wider and more built for baby-having than Vash's, and yet that was how new life had been coming about since the dawn of Creation.

With a sigh of acceptance, he grabbed a clean towel and flapped it to unfold it. Meryl happily switched places with him, joining Vash and Milly at the head of the bed while Wolfwood moved to kneel between his legs.

"Okay if I touch?" He directed at Vash.

"Yeah, just be gentle," Vash replied faintly. His elbow was resting on the bed railing, forehead propped on the heel of his fist. One of his knees was bouncing like it sometimes had in the past when he was trying to tough it out through the pain of Wolfwood pouring distilled alcohol on one of his many wounds to disinfect it before sewing him up. He sucked a quick breath in and cringed, then kneaded his fingertips into his upper belly. Little man must've kicked him.

As carefully as if he were touching a fancy glass sculpture, Wolfwood wiped some of the blood and fluid away from the velvety-slick petals of flesh, pausing to let Vash push and Meryl and Milly quietly encourage him through it. His birth canal widened minutely around their daughter's head, stretching, the edges of it inflamed and swollen. Wolfwood rested his hand on Vash's knee, giving it the gentlest pat.

"Good job, needle noggin," he murmured when Vash let up with a groan. "She's comin'."

Vash, who had been blowing air through rigid lips, froze in place with a hitched breath like his heart had been ripped out of his chest, and the strangest little expression crossed his face as he met Wolfwood's eyes; devastation, raw and peeled bare, that quickly gave way to something terribly emotional but otherwise unreadable. A tear rolled down his face, and he reached up to dash it away before smoothing his hand up and down his bump, mouth quivering.

"Yeah," he croaked, smiling. "She is." Then, he took a deep, centering breath, as if forcing himself to relax, before looking up at Milly. "I need a hot washcloth, Mil."

"On it," Milly said without hesitation, disappearing into the bathroom. She returned within seconds, handing the washcloth off. Vash pressed it over the lower half of his birth canal, then let his head fall back on the pillow with a breathless sigh. Exhausted baby blues drifted shut. Poor bastard was worn to a shred.

"This," he said with soft, matter-of-fact dread, "is about to suck ass."

Meryl leaned in to drop a consoling kiss on his temple. Wolfwood grasped his hand, thumbing over his knuckles. Milly patted him on the shoulder.

"You can do it," Milly encouraged quietly.

"For them," Meryl reminded.

Without opening his eyes, Vash gave the barest nod. "For them," he echoed in a rasp. He pressed a few breaths from his lips.

Wolfwood pulled Vash's hand to his mouth to press his pursed lips to the back of it, shutting his own eyes. His throat worked with emotion when Vash's hand gave his the briefest, tiniest squeeze.

When those final few moments of exhausted silence dissipated and Vash's eyes opened, as bright and blue as the inner cone of a flame, goosebumps raised on Wolfwood's arms. There was that sharp-eyed, resolute look he'd seen so many times before, when Vash the Stampede had a daunting problem to solve and was about to perform an impossible feat.

"Help me sit up a bit further," Vash instructed them. Once they had dragged him further up the bed and stacked pillows behind his back for him to brace against, Vash shifted to get his heels underneath him, stretching his back against the pillows and sighing. "Stay right here beside me, Meryl."

Instantly, she perked up, ready and eager. "What do you need me to do? Anything."

Vash aimed a sparkling wink up at her, though the intended effect was slightly minimized by the fact that he was winded and pouring sweat and his limp plumes of hair were half sticking up and half flopped to one side like the crest of some great, deranged bird. "Sit there and look pretty, of course. The mere sight of you will fill my limbs with strength, my pretty little mayfly."

Milly snickered and Wolfwood couldn't hold back a derisive snort as Meryl reddened from the neck up and smacked Vash's arm, then instantly hovered her hands over the spot like she was afraid she'd hurt him, spluttering, "You—now isn't the time to be flirting with me!"

"Wrong! It's always the time to flirt with you. It's a good—distraction." Vash clenched his teeth, wrapping one arm around one knee to pull it back while he bore down. Meryl placed her hands on his shoulder as if she was unsure what to do with them.

Milly shook her head slightly in disbelief. "You're amazing, Mr. Vash," she said once he relaxed. "My little big sister could barely talk at this stage. Doesn't it hurt like the dickens?"

"Yeah, it does," Vash answered, reedy and wobbling. "I've felt a hell of a lot worse before, though." He panted, shallow and sharp, and grabbed the bed railing with his other hand, curling up again.

Wolfwood hastily took up the warm washcloth Vash had dropped, heart in his throat, and kept it pressed to Vash's perineum while he pushed. Was that supposed to help prevent tearing? It made sense that it would. Warmth to loosen things up. The slick tissue around Vash's, uh. Vaginal...opening? Was already stretched so thin that it was nearly transparent, and baby girl's head hadn't even really started to come out yet; it was still tucked just inside.

Wolfwood's heart quivered with the very abrupt and rattling realization that he'd never caught a freshly-born baby before. He had to clench his free hand a couple of times to stop his wrist from shaking like a twig in the wind, then looked down at his fingers, rough and calloused.

He'd snuffed out the lives of men and women alike with these inhumanly strong hands, hands that he was about to catch his precious, unblemished daughter with, and suddenly, he felt so rotten and unworthy to touch her that he wanted to scrub his hands until he reached muscle and bone.

He wanted to be worthy of her, and of her little brother. Of Vash, of Meryl.

Oh, God, help me be enough. I want to be worthy.

His hand trembled.

"Nicholas?" He heard Vash say, tiny and uncertain. He looked up. Vash was staring down at him like he was a grenade with a bent pin, apparently forgetting that he was in the middle of pushing a baby out in favor of making sure Wolfwood was okay. "What's wrong?"

Meryl's petite fingers touched Wolfwood's face, brushing away wetness on his cheekbone, his upper lip.

He met Meryl's eyes to see her looking back at him like he was some sort of cherished treasure, and not the filth-tainted, obedient dog he used to be. She cupped his jaw and leaned in to plant her warm, heart-shaped lips beside his nose, lingering there.

"She couldn't be in safer hands," she whispered in his ear.

Where the hell this woman got her mind-reading capabilities, Wolfwood wasn't sure, but it almost bordered on irritating sometimes how accurate she was. Hard to feel much irritation, though, when you were about to deliver your own baby.

Focus, Nicholas. Now wasn't the time to be dredging through the past.

Vash was already pushing again, head thrown back and prosthetic hand grabbing for the bed rail. Sweat trickled down his neck, catching on a thin, horizontal scar just below his Adam's apple that Wolfwood didn't often like to ruminate on. Vash was working so damn hard, and finally, finally, his grueling work was paying off, because their baby girl's head slid further out, welling blood along the bottom edge of Vash's birth canal and causing a short, sharp shriek to fly from his mouth.

"I know. Slow and steady," Wolfwood ordered, keeping unwavering pressure on the perineum and the head. A closed-mouth moan dragged from the back of Vash's throat, but he didn't let up, thighs quaking.

Wolfwood had never been squeamish in his life and still wasn't, but even he had to admit, the sight of his daughter's slimy, blood-smeared head crowning out of Vash's paper-thin vaginal tissue made his knees feel loose and his neck a bit chilly. Mostly because he couldn't even imagine how damn excruciating it had to be. He glanced up at Vash, who was deathly silent, face scrunched and beet red.

"Oh, good job, Vash!" Meryl cried, shaking an equally excited Milly's arm.

Vash sucked a massive, halting breath in, and there was a metallic crumple; the bed rail, holy fuck.

"OH, MY GOD—" he screamed, the sound frayed and bloody and fucking spine-chilling, a tone entirely alien.

There wasn't a doubt in Wolfwood's mind that if it hadn't been for those fancy earplugs, all three of them would've been on the floor with their eardrums exploded, bleeding out of their ears. Jesus H. Christ, that had nearly curdled his bone marrow.

"Ring of fire," Wolfwood said loudly over Vash's panicked whimpering. "Breathe, needle noggin. Breathe. Just breathe, her little head's comin'."

Gulping, desperate breaths whooshed in and out of Vash. Meryl wiped his forehead and neck.

In a fleeting moment that seemed to stretch for several, Wolfwood realized that this felt almost nothing like...like that day in New Moab had been. There was no monumental dread crushing him asunder, no nausea curling his stomach over how disgustingly unfair the situation was; only the taste of anticipation heavy in the air, snappy and electrifying, keeping his stomach fluttering and his heart rate in a constant state of elevation that made him feel a bit lightheaded. When Meryl met his gaze, her eyes reflected the same overly-bright mix between nervousness and exhilaration that Wolfwood had a feeling was written all over his own face.

We're about to be parents, they silently screamed at each other.

 

⁌

 

Vash had never heard these sounds from his sisters before.

He'd barely noticed it, at first. In the back of his mind, muted underneath the blistering sting between his legs and his own guttural roaring and the scarily-fast hammering of every heartbeat in his temples and ears, he could hear a high, dreamy hum of Plant voices, droning yet comforting in its constancy. Their hive mind was cooing to him, metaphysically cradling his worn-out consciousness, pressing strength back into his limbs.

The lights overhead flashed on, gently buzzing before going back out.

He paid them no mind, nor the garbled, wary words he heard crackling from Judith's pager, probably asking what the hell was going on. He had a job to do. Baby girl was squirming and jerking between his hips, probably scared and confused over why she was unable to move as much as she wanted to. It was time to get her out and finally hold her in his arms.

"Milly, help me lean forward, I need to—" he managed to groan, and within seconds, he was propped up by Milly's unshakable strength. He used the leverage to dig his heels in and pack as much restrained force as he could into the next push. It was insanely difficult to pull his punches so hard, so to speak, but he was worried he would injure baby girl if he pushed as hard as his body was capable of pushing. There was raw power zipping through his veins, lighting him up like a circuit board, and if he leaned too far into it, his gate could be triggered open.

Luckily, all his power wasn't needed.

Splitting pain knifed up through his crotch with a spray of hot fluid, and for a second of silent, chest-caving panic, he was terrified he'd just torn his perineum.

his knees scratched on rusted porcelain

"Head's halfway out." Wolfwood's voice raised, dissipating the memory as quickly as it had come.

In a head-whirling haze of pain and adrenaline, Vash's gaze darted down past the dome of his belly to Wolfwood, whose forearms and rolled-up sleeves were unevenly soaked with not blood, but amniotic fluid. Their eyes met; Wolfwood's eyes were glimmering. With the hand that wasn't keeping their daughter's head from tearing Vash in two, Wolfwood angled the mirror, and Vash's eyes bugged out at the sight of the fuzzy, wrinkly mound that was the top of their baby's head sticking out of his birth canal. Wolfwood wiped some of the grime away, and Vash felt like all the air had been sucked straight out of his lungs, dazzled by how bright blonde her hair was.

Even brighter than his. Lighter.

"Oh," he breathed shakily, curling forward as if drawn by a magnet. Milly kept him braced and Wolfwood took his right hand, pulling it around his stomach to rest his fingertips on their baby. "Oh, look at you," he choked out, tight with impending tears, petting the damp, wispy hair.

"She's so close," Meryl whispered.

This didn't feel real. Vash wasn't sure it actually was. There was still a chance it was all a dream. Could he really be happy yet when he didn't know if he was dreaming?

Another contraction wrung his uterus tight, and he had to lean back against Milly and toss his head to the side, groaning and pushing. His jaw gave a startling pop in his ears.

"Easy, easy!" He heard Wolfwood say sharply.

He wanted to scream that he couldn't be easy. Having a baby didn't work like that. There came a time during every birth when the pressure and urgency just got to be too much and he couldn't stop if he tried, and he was at that point now. The compulsion to push was overwhelming and all-consuming, burning through him from the inside out.

Cold sweat trickled down his face. He could hear every rushing pulse of blood through his veins.

His breath gusted out of him, rushed back in, and he pushed again.

Not two seconds went by before he gasped like he'd been stabbed.

 

⁌

 

As their daughter's head popped out in a shower of bloodied water, Vash shrieked and smacked the flat of his fist against the mattress with a loud whap. Wolfwood swore, fumbling to keep her head supported in a towel. His arms, hands, and sleeves were spattered with fluid—fallout from the startling cloudburst that he was pretty confident was Vash's second amniotic sac breaking, judging by the sheer amount. Maybe the sudden movement of the head coming out had broken it?

Wolfwood couldn't have cared less about the mess, though; he was too busy pulling the clean end of the towel up to lightly wipe away the blood and slippery white shit that clung to the back of his little girl's head. Her face was pointed downward, but he could see the little curves of her ears.

That was weird; for some reason, his eyes were smarting.

"Head's all the way out," he croaked. 

A wordless, high-pitched warble from Vash was all the acknowledgement he received. Scarred legs were limp and spread wide, knees trembling on the bed rails, and Vash's head had fallen sideways onto Milly's broad shoulder.

Meryl leaned in close to Wolfwood, speaking under her breath. "Check her neck for the cord."

Breaking out of his enraptured staring, Wolfwood slid two shaking fingers into Vash, probing around the baby's head as gently as he possibly could. Thankfully, Vash was either too out of it or in too much pain to notice.

Wolfwood's throat bobbed. Sweat beaded on his temple.

You'll know if it's the cord, Judith echoed in his memory from a few hours ago. It's very...bouncy. Elastic. A bit like a worm larva.

But, all he felt was the wet skin of his daughter's spindly neck.

"No cord," he breathed out. Meryl's shoulders relaxed with a sigh of her own.

Vash still looked stunned, almost betrayed. There were tears slipping down his mottled face. "I-I thought I was...I f-forgot she wouldn't...come out all at once, like..."

I thought I was done. Fuck, a round to the chest from a .45–70 probably would've hurt less than hearing that.

"It should only take a couple more pushes, and then she'll be in your arms," Milly soothed, moving Vash's sweaty hair off his forehead with the softest touch. Vash looked up her with downright pitiful hope.

"Really?"

"Really," she assured, sweetly thumbing his tears away.

Vash closed his eyes in misery, but then they shot open again and a little cascade of sobs that perhaps could've been called giggles fell from his lips. He gingerly massaged the underside of his belly. "She's still kicking me."

Wolfwood's lip crunched between his teeth. When he was pretty sure he could speak without breaking down and blubbering his eyes out, he chuckled tightly. "Gettin' her last few complaints with her accommodations filed while she still can, eh." He dabbed away a trickle of mucus and blood. "You feelin' any significant blood loss up there?"

"I don't think so," Vash grunted. "Just—oh, fuck." His breathing suddenly sped up and tinged with a whine, and Wolfwood watched in motionless awe as the baby slowly twisted sideways in Vash's birth canal, turning her head in his hand. His nose stung fiercely with the renewed threat of tears as he caught his first real, non-two-dimensional glimpse of the scrunched, purplish features of his precious baby girl's face.

She looked pissed off. She looked like Vash.

"Oh, my God, she's so pretty," Meryl wept.

Wolfwood swallowed as hard as he could, cleaning her face off with the towel. Her little eyes pinched shut even harder, her rosebud lips curling back over bare gums like she was already trying to cry. If her lungs hadn't still been compressed by Vash's birth canal, she probably would've been shrieking like a banshee.

Vash was squirming like he was trying not to push. "Is the cord around her neck?" He sobbed out.

"Sorry, no, no cord," Wolfwood clarified, loud and firm. "Go on, blondie."

Vash instantly lunged up with a harsh breath. His arms quivered, ramrod straight, hands clenching the bed rails for all he was worth as he sank low with a growl of effort that Wolfwood swore vibrated his ribcage.

Wolfwood watched, unable to breathe, as Vash's birth canal stretched taut around their daughter's shoulders. He flicked his gaze up to Vash's face, worried at how silent he suddenly was. Shouldn't he have been screaming bloody murder?

But his eyes were focused somewhere Wolfwood couldn't see, red and wet and fucking haunted.

 

⁌

 

132 years ago

 

Every rattling cough felt like razor blades ripping through Vash's throat just above his Adam's apple, speckling his forearm in crimson. He spat slimy blood to the side, still huddled and trembling at one end of the gore-smeared bathtub. A soul-deep chill rattled him to his core, heavy in the back of his neck. I'm losing a lot of blood, the thought echoed through the farthest corner of his mind like an empty breeze.

Some unknown instinct forced him back up to a sitting position.

His breathing caught and whistled through his mutilated vocal folds, wet and sticky. He was scared to try to use his voice at all, just knowing how much it was going to hurt. He swallowed more blood, reaching down with tacky, quivering hands to slide them into the still-warm membrane.

She was limp and weighed almost nothing despite her considerable size, her body slimy with decomposed blood and chunks of unidentified tissues. Petals curled at her back, void of life. Shaking like a leaf, Vash maneuvered her into his arms like he would a human infant. He tried to wipe some of the muck from her face, but only succeeded in smearing it further over the dull grey markings she bore around her tiny, closed eyes.

His own bioluminescence lit up the tub, weak and sputtering a desaturated red.

With tears falling from his glazed eyes and bloody saliva oozing from his lips with every muted, hiccupping sob, he pressed his forehead against hers, searching. Pleading.

Nothing.

 

⁌

 

97 years ago

 

Blood trickled down Vash's forearm in rivulets. The hot-cold agony of his canines scraping bone and the taste of his own mangled flesh served to keep his mind laser-focused on being silent through the brutal tension that had his insides twisted into a corkscrew. He could hear the angry squabbling of the bandits that had been on his tail two stories below in the alleyway outside the inn, faintly drifting through the window he had hastily slapped shut on his way inside.

If he'd been a minute slower, he would've been in deep shit.

Thank God, they lost interest. And thank God for whoever had left this window unlocked.

Once he was certain they were gone for good, he forced himself to stand on unsteady knees, mopping the blood from his mouth with the sleeve of his duster, still tasting salt and iron.

Even wracked with hard, fast pains that made his back hunch and his stomach flip-flop dangerously in his torso, he had the good sense to stumble through the bedroom and adjoining washroom and make sure he was alone before latching the deadbolt of the room’s door closed and wedging the back of a chair under the doorknob.

Mentally apologizing to the innkeeper, he snatched a threadbare blanket from a nearby chair, spread it on the floor next to the bed, and sank into a squat with his flesh arm braced behind him on the mattress, heaving for breath as noiselessly as he could while he frantically unclasped his belt and shimmied his pants down to mid-thigh. Shit, his arm was bleeding all over the quilt. Someone had worked really hard to make that, and here he was ruining it just like everything else he fucking touched.

With a strained exhale, he fumbled his gun out of its holster and smacked it down on the mattress, within reach.

His legs shook with every mighty cramp he bore down through, insides wringing around the thing inside him like a vice. God, it felt awful having something so big lodged in his insides, but this one did feel significantly smaller than the first time, so his wits were firmly in place.

He almost resented his lucidity.

Within five and a half strong, chin-to-chest pushes, his vision flashed white and he emitted a wounded, dragging grunt of relief as the fleshy, off-white pod that contained his second daughter plopped free from him in a shockingly clear gush of fluid.

His throat yanked tight.

No wonder this time was so much easier, and so less bloody. She was little, probably half the size of the first one.

Prying his shooting glove off with red-stained teeth and tossing it on the bed behind him, he hastily scooped up the tacky pod and brought it close to his face, nosing against it with trembling breaths, feeling, finding her forehead. Plant markings blazed to life down his body, calling, calling, please, please.

...even though he'd already known, his chest caved inward with a bitter, airless sob.

 

⁌

 

59 years ago

 

Fluorescent lights overhead left green, parallel streaks in Vash's vision.

Voices were talking to him. Scared, frantic, trying to get him to reply, but his tongue felt like rubber. Something pinched in the back of his flesh hand. Heat and wetness clung his pants to his crotch and inner thighs. Sharp chills gripped his bones...blood loss, huh. Lots of it. His waning consciousness tried to slip between his fingers, but he blinked hard and focused with monumental effort, turning his face to the side to find the movement he'd seen in his peripheral vision.

The blurry form of Brad was hunched over the infirmary bed next to the one where Vash lay. The bloodied skin of the seed pod had been sliced open, the white sheets soiled with the rotted, off-color blood and viscera that had been contained within. In Brad's shaking, glistening hands hung the still body of Vash's third-born, dripping wet with dark, murky fluids.

Weakly, Vash's hand lifted and fell in her direction, covered in dull, mauve patterns. My baby, he wanted to say. I just want my baby.

He and Brad locked eyes, and the grieved, devastated shake of Brad's head stole all desire to be conscious.

Or alive.

Vash detested the concept of suicide, almost more than he did murder.

But as his eyes rolled back and slipped shut, sending a hot tear rolling over the bridge of his nose, he thought that maybe it wouldn't be so bad if he never woke up again.

 

⁌

 

3 years ago

 

Vash felt like he'd been scraped on rocky ground until there was nothing left but his raw innards, caked with dirt and sand. Every nerve ending from his chest down to his thighs was on fire. Breathing hurt. He hadn't been in this much pain in years. Maybe even decades.

And it was all pointless, with no reward for all his toil. Just like always.

With tears dribbling down her cheeks and little swallowed-back sobs shaking her shoulders, Meryl nestled their silent daughters back in the basket and tucked them in like she didn't want them to get cold. Wolfwood stood beside Vash's bed with his hands hanging at his sides, watching Meryl with stony, mournful eyes, looking more lost and helpless than Vash had ever seen. Vash summoned the strength to move his arm, nudging Wolfwood's fingers with his knuckles. A breath of relief escaped him when those strong fingers closed around his own, holding his hand up so he could relax his arm.

Meryl's words were wet and hushed, angry, as she scrubbed her eyes on the billowy sleeve of her big t-shirt and spat, "this isn't fair."

Her wounded, incredulous tone scooped the remaining shards of Vash's heart into a pile and crushed them into fine powder.

He let his eyes drift shut. The world was bleeding watercolor in his exhaustion, and he preferred not to see it.

With a resentful, hoarse little chuckle, he let contempt for his circumstances creep into his heart for the first time in decades.

"No. I guess it's not."

 

⁌

 

Present

 

The next several seconds crawled by in slow motion.

The white-hot burn between Vash's legs reached a nauseating peak and his vision went squiggly at the corners, blood pounding through his head. The pain was incomprehensible, nearly knocking him stupid. He'd never wanted something to end so badly, so he gulped back the urge to scream his guts out, hung his head, and pushed harder, shoving his whole body down into the pressure between his hips.

Rushing filled his ears. Sweat trickled down the small of his back.

Then, something shifted.

The feeling of a baby leaving your body was one that couldn't possibly be replicated by anything else; a staggering stretch that exploded colorful starbursts behind your eyelids and gave way to a sensation like all of your organs being unceremoniously wrenched downward and outward at once, the suddenness of it as visceral and frightening as being thrown off a skyscraper.

The Pavlovian despair that flooded Vash's soul for half a second in response to that feeling made his stomach drop into his toes and his lungs stop working. No, please. Anything but that feeling. That feeling meant he had failed yet again, had birthed another dead child he would have to bury and mourn.

But a sound cleanly pierced through the air, and it was the most unbelievable thing he'd ever heard, impaling his chest and sinking irremovable barbs into his heart: two fluid-clogged coughs that paved the way for the pinched, shrill screeching of tiny, tiny lungs.

Dumbfounded, Vash craned his neck to look over his belly.

Wolfwood, with streams of joy dripping down his face, cradled their slimy, glistening, brand-new baby girl in tender hands,

and she was wonderfully, unquestionably alive.

 

⁌

 

Muscle memory was a damned remarkable thing.

As soon as baby girl's little shoulders slipped free and the rest of her body slithered out of Vash's birth canal in a grody splurt of blood and a subsequent gush of even more amniotic fluid, Wolfwood's hands knew exactly what to do. Maylene hadn't ever been this little, but still, the knowledge carried over.

He hooked his middle finger and thumb behind his little girl's neck and cupped her bottom in the other hand, lifting her up from the mess between Vash's legs and blinking tears out of his eyes.

Needing no encouragement, baby girl coughed a couple times, sucked her first deep breath in, and yowled herself to life, squirming roughly and flailing her spindly limbs and clenched fists like she wanted to hit something. Wolfwood twitched in surprise and laughed (definitely didn't cry) when faint blue Plant markings lit up all over her body, patterns he'd never seen before, intricate and beautiful and all hers. She was sticky with blood from Vash's cervical tear and that white junk that started with a V, but the more she cried, the pinker she turned, her face reddish-purple and absolutely furious.

Wolfwood had never laid eyes on something so breathtaking.

Making sure not to pull on the twisty, pulsing cord dangling from her belly, he held her up so Vash and the girls could see, raising his voice over her caterwauling.

"Would you look at that," he just managed to say before the lump in his throat threatened to choke him alive.

Clearly feeling the same, Meryl was weeping too hard to speak coherently, leaning against Vash's shoulder and crying against the ball of it. Milly smeared her own tears away with the heel of her hand, swallowing around a breathy bleat.

"I'll get Miss Judy," she sobbed, replacing her support behind Vash with pillows and jogging out of the infirmary.

It was strange; Wolfwood would've expected Vash to instantly burst into unequivocally overjoyed tears along with Meryl and Milly, but instead, the color had seeped from his face, eyes wide and red-rimmed and steadily spilling over, locked on their daughter. He looked shell-shocked. He looked petrified.

But still, two shaking, mismatched arms reached out in broken supplication toward the baby he'd just given birth to.

Wolfwood transferred their screaming daughter into Vash's hands, and for a good five seconds, Vash held her there with his thumbs hooked under her arms while she kicked her ridiculously tiny feet and squawked, looking her up and down with his mouth hanging open like he wasn't sure what to do with her. Finally, he seemed to remember where he was, and the first squeezed little sob puffed from his lips.

"Where did you come from? How did..." Vash pulled her over his belly to nestle her on the right side of his chest, resting on her tummy. She buried her screams in his scarred skin, as if she already knew which way his nipple was. His hand looked gigantic cupping the back of her head. Even Meryl's hand on her back looked normal-sized. "You're so little, oh, you're so little. You’re too little, baby girl. H-how are you real?"

Vash nuzzled his daughter's wrinkled forehead with the Plant markings on the bridge of his nose, and her own patterns brightened significantly. All of a sudden, Vash was crying harder than Wolfwood had ever seen him cry, the sort of ugly, wounded tears that turned you beet-red and made your chest burn with lack of oxygen.

The image of Vash nestling his prosthetic thumb in baby girl's hand and her mighty red fingers squeezing it for all she was worth wasn't going to leave Wolfwood's brain for as long as he lived. He had to wipe his eyes on his shoulders.

He and Meryl shared an exhilarated glance. She managed a watery smile.

Honestly, Wolfwood hated to intrude on a moment that Vash had probably longed for for over a century, but he needed to get their kid dried off so she wouldn't get cold. He grabbed a clean towel and gently wiped off her sticky skin, and Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, that hacked her off even more than being born in the first place had. Her tongue was curled up with the sheer force of her angry shrilling.

It was impossible not to grin like a fucking clown. "Whaddaya know, she's as mouthy as her mama." He tucked the towel around her to keep her warm.

"And almost as loud," Meryl laughed through her tears.

Vash hiccupped, finally raising his eyes to look at Meryl and Wolfwood, extending a pleading arm to the latter.

Didn't have to tell either of them twice. Sniffling, Meryl plastered to his side like wet fabric, and Wolfwood slid off the bed to hug him from the other side. They covered Vash's temples and cheeks with kisses, and that dazed look of disbelief began to recede from his eyes.

"Oh, my God, I just had a baby," he gasped out. "She's here, she's—oh, oh, hi, sweetie girl, oh my God, you're so cute." Vash patted her back through the towel and pressed kiss after kiss to her wild cornsilk hair without a care in the world how disgusting she still was. The baby kicked her feet and spluttered out another livid noise, digging her fingers into the softness of his chest, and Wolfwood thought he might straight up explode and die with how much he loved her.

"Goodness, honey, how hard did you pinch her?" came Judith's teasing, elated voice from further down the row of beds. Milly was following close behind her.

"She did plenty of pinching on the nerves in my crotch these past few weeks, it was only fair," Vash instantly snarked back, and God, was it ever good to see him beaming like the suns.

Judith guffawed, grabbing her stethoscope and listening to baby girl's heart and lungs, which was violently protested. "I know, lamb, it's cold. 'Get this mean old lady away from me', she says!" She removed the earpieces of the stethoscope. "She's clearly breathing well, so I'll wait a minute to examine her further. How do you feel, honey?"

Vash didn't take his eyes off the baby, clearly high as a kite on baby hormones. "Incredible. Outstanding. Better than I've ever felt in my life. I want five more."

Milly cackled, and Meryl shrieked into her hand. Wolfwood nearly choked and coughed his lungs out. "Mercy, needle noggin!"

"How do you actually feel, though?" Judith prodded gently.

"Like I've been hit by a bus, but I'm fine." Vash spared her a tired, reassuring smile. "No hemorrhaging that I can feel. I know what it feels like."

Okay, Wolfwood knew that, but it still didn't make it easier to hear.

"Excellent. I'd rather monitor you, too, but...that can wait a little bit. I can see that you didn't tear this time, so that's wonderful." Judy squeezed a dollop of conductive gel onto Vash's stomach; it had finally shrunk a good bit.

Vash blinked, bewildered. "Why did I not tear like the first time? She's huge."

She probably didn't even weigh six pounds, but to Vash's narrow hips, she'd probably felt like an entire Sandsteamer.

Judith smiled. "Because you took your time and let yourself stretch, just like I told you to. A job brilliantly done." She pulled some slack into her ultrasound wand's cord. "I'm just going to check on baby B, so don't mind me." Her eyes were soft and misty. "She sure is pretty. You boys did good."

"She's beautiful," Milly agreed. "And she has her dad's nose."

Wolfwood felt like Milly had squeezed his head in her hands and shook it as hard as she could.

Vash and Meryl looked absolutely gobsmacked. "How can you already tell?" Vash asked.

Milly pointed to the baby, who had finally decided to not hate the world for five seconds and was quieting down to some of the cutest snuffles and whimpers Wolfwood had ever heard. "Just give her a closer look. See? The bridge curves downward. Tiny Wolfwood nose."

"She's right," Meryl breathed. "It is a tiny Wolfwood nose!" She reached behind Vash to grip Wolfwood's arm, her eyes huge with emotion. Vash was just as enamored, judging from his returning tears. "Nick."

Wolfwood tasted blood from how hard he bit his cheek. His little girl had his nose.

"She got something from Mr. Vash, too, it looks like." Milly peered at baby girl's face, then took a clean towel and wiped at her face, prompting more screeching. "Sorry, lovie, I know...ah, I was right! Look!"

Her efforts had uncovered a beauty mark, about an inch below the left corner of her rosebud lips and no bigger than the head of a pin.

"How precious," Meryl gushed.

Again, though, Vash's reaction wasn't a hundred percent what Wolfwood had expected. He almost looked like he felt sick to his stomach for half a second. But then, he pulled a wobbly smile, touching his daughter's beauty mark with infinite reverence.

Before he could say anything, though, Judith cleared her throat.

"I'm sorry to interrupt," she said softly. "But I have a little work to do on Vash. Baby B turned breech when his sister slipped out."

The air was suddenly heavier. "Is that super bad?" Meryl asked uneasily.

Judith shook her head. "Not necessarily. I'll just have to turn him, and the sooner the better."

"Whatever you need me to do, I'll do it," Vash said without hesitation.

With the old lady's help, Wolfwood whisked the soiled absorbent pad that had been underneath Vash away and replaced it with a clean one, then they reclined his bed down nearly flat. He went boneless once he wasn't upright.

"Oh, wow. I'm...a little bit tired," he announced.

"I know, dear. It shouldn't be too much longer before you're done. Twins usually come pretty close together." Judith put on a fresh pair of gloves. "Are you okay with cutting her cord now? It would give me a little more room to work."

"S'fine." Vash turned his head to kiss the baby's forehead and then cradled it beneath his cheek.

Judith stuck two clamps on the umbilical cord, then offered Wolfwood the scissors. He held up his hand.

"You should cut hers, shortstack," he directed at Meryl. "I'll cut his."

Meryl straightened up, looking nervous and eager. "Oh! Um. Okay. It doesn't hurt either of them, right?"

"Not even a little bit," Milly promised. "Cut hard, though. It's like a big ol' rubber band."

With Judith directing her, Meryl got the cord snipped, and Vash wrapped the towel a bit more firmly around the baby, who peeled apart her sticky little eyelids and squinted up at her surroundings. Vash's expression was indescribable, decades upon decades of longing and broken hope fulfilled.

"Hey, flower," he whispered.

Wolfwood flapped his hand at Meryl and Milly. "Hey, hey, her eyes are open."

While Judy slathered more conductive gel all over Vash's bump, they all crowded around the head of the bed, cooing. Baby girl blinked hard, like she was trying to decide if she liked seeing or not, but apparently she decided on "not", because she creaked out a crotchety little whine, her chin quivering and her face reddening once more.

"I know, it's rough out here, ain't it, princess," Wolfwood consoled, pulling the towel up over her little pink shoulder when it tried to slip down.

"Tell us all about it," Milly crooned.

"Fitting that she looks so much like her dad, since she's almost as cranky as him," Meryl sniffed. "Though, I must say, much prettier."

"Know what, you brat? I can't even argue." Wolfwood very lightly stroked the baby's petite, hooked nose, earning a wrinkle of it. "My ol' beak looks much better on her than me."

"I like your nose," Vash and Meryl exclaimed at the exact same time, then both turned red. Milly tittered.

Idiots. Wolfwood adored them.

Judith was still looking around in Vash's belly with the ultrasound. "Okay. Here's how this is going to go." She took a deep breath and set the wand down, palpating the slightly deflated belly with her hands and wincing right along with Vash when he grunted and whimpered. "I know, I'm so sorry. It sounds ridiculous to ask with you so sore from contractions, but try not to tense up too much. Just let your belly relax. I'm going to start turning him very, very slowly, and I need you to tell me immediately if you feel any sort of sharp, tugging pain. That could mean he's tangled in his cord. If all goes well, the only thing you should feel is some soreness and shifting. Got it?"

"Yeah," Vash breathed.

Wolfwood offered his hand. After an uneasy glance and some hesitation, Vash laced their fingers together.

"My hand is sweaty."

He received an eye roll. "Needle noggin, your dried womb juice is all over me, sweat ain't nothin'."

"Nick, oh my God," Meryl scolded.

Vash somehow had the energy to look scandalized. "You didn't have to make it sound that gross."

"Amniotic fluid is mostly baby pee," Milly added, ever helpful.

Wolfwood snorted. "Far from the worst thing that's been on my hands."

As Judith located little man's head and feet with her fingers, Wolfwood watched in fascination, ignoring the shift of bones in his hand. Vash's belly had almost no fluid left in it, so the lumpy outline of the baby looked damn weird.

The thumb of Judith's right hand dug into Vash's belly to cup the baby's feet, while the other hand was on the head. Slowly, she pushed to the right with her thumb, coaxing the baby to slide counterclockwise with the fingers of her other hand.

Just watching it made Wolfwood feel a bit giddy-headed, and not in a good way. It had to feel terrible.

"Ugh," Vash croaked shakily. Meryl leaned down to press her forehead to his, and Milly petted his hair. 

"In through your nose, out through your lips," Judith instructed quietly.

Vash obeyed, breathing through the discomfort like he would a contraction, eyes closed. All the while, he rubbed his cheek back and forth on baby girl's forehead. She'd calmed down significantly now, probably tired out from pitching her first fit and soothed by Vash's body heat.

Little firecracker, just like her kaachan.

Honestly, it took less time than Wolfwood would've expected. Only about a minute passed of watching his son get gently manhandled into the correct position before Judith grabbed the ultrasound wand and pressed it above Vash's pubic bone. The round, white outline of the baby's little cranium immediately showed up on the readout screen.

"That was nice and easy," she sighed, satisfied.

The girls cheered and clasped hands, and Vash had never looked more relieved. Wolfwood held up his fist, knuckles first, and Vash tapped it with his own.

"That was a whole lot less painful than pushing a baby out," he laughed weakly, then his smile dimmed a bit, as if he'd remembered that he had to do that again.

Judith seemed to glean this. "He'll come out a bit faster than she did, hon."

"I sure hope so."

"In the meantime, want to try nursing her?" She pointed to baby girl, who was smacking her lips and turning her head on Vash's chest. "She's giving those hunger cues I told you about. It'll also help stimulate contractions and get baby B out quicker."

Vash had never really talked much about this part with Wolfwood. The couple of times Judith had mentioned in checkups that Vash might be able to breastfeed the babies, he hadn't had a lot to say. But now, he nodded readily, whatever previous thoughts he'd had seemingly set aside in favor of his hungry daughter.

"Show me how?"

 

⁌

 

Meryl was fairly certain that she'd never been so wide-eyed and bushy-tailed at this hour. It was close to four in the morning, and instead of being dog-tired like she should've been, her heart was still skipping on cloud nine, absolutely ecstatic, as she snuggled up to Vash's side and watched him feed their daughter.

Their daughter. Oh, she could die, baby girl was so unbelievably precious. The features she had inherited from Wolfwood and Vash were plain as day, but the most obvious ones were definitely that pretty little nose, the beauty mark, and Vash's droopy eye shape. She was currently latched onto Vash's nipple ("I only wish I still had both," Vash had softly lamented.) and suckling away, only interrupting herself to swallow every mouthful with the sweetest little puffing grunts Meryl had ever heard in her life. Her eyes were fully open now, locked on Vash's face, studying it. They were a dark, muted blue, much like Wolfwood's, but since Vash didn't know if he'd been born with those bright blue peepers of his or if they'd developed later like a regular newborn, that was subject to change.

Meryl was over the moons. She just hated to see Vash hurting again.

About two minutes after he'd started nursing, his contractions had slowly but surely crept back in, and once they really got going, they were bad. Even though he was feeling worse and worse by the minute, he refused to make baby girl quit eating. Only when she pulled off his nipple on her own and he had burped her a bit clumsily did he concede.

"Take her, Judy? Make sure she's okay," Vash mumbled. As Judith complied, transferring half-asleep baby girl to one of the bassinets nearby, she eyed the readouts for the vital monitors Vash had finally let her clip onto him.

"Feeling alright?"

"Dizzy. Don't think it's blood loss dizzy, though." He blinked hard. "Feels more like I can't get enough air in."

"I can put you on oxygen, if you want."

"Might need to. And...Judy? Will you stay?" As Judith stretched the elastic strap of an oxygen mask over the back of his head and adjusted the mask over his nose and mouth, Vash looked up at her, seeming a bit ashamed. "I'm...still scared something might go wrong. Little man's health is more important than my weird...whatever it is."

Judith's eyes softened. "Of course I will."

The oxygen seemed to help him feel less loopy, but his contractions intensified significantly over the course of about ten minutes.

"This is a little worse the second time," he said weakly in between contractions that were already almost on top of each other.

Meryl never would've guessed that. He was so much quieter, so still. Maybe he was just too exhausted to thrash around and yell anymore. His voice was absolutely shredded.

Judith peered at him. "Do I need to check your dilation?"

"I don't think you'll have time." Vash's inhale was shallow and wounded. He pulled his leg back. "Hold my other leg, Nick."

Looking a bit uneasy, Wolfwood did as he asked, wrapping his arm around Vash's thigh. "Do you need to be in a different position?"

Vash shook his head. Fresh sweat dotted his forehead. "He's not waiting on that."

With that, Vash bore down with a soft grunt. Meryl exchanged an alarmed glance with Wolfwood, but they didn't have time to wonder.

"Might...wanna get down there, Mer." The words scraped out of Vash like a cinderblock on concrete.

"Come scrub your hands," Judith urged.

Suddenly, as Meryl clambered off the bed and scurried to the sink to wash her hands up to the elbows, a wave of nerves skittered down her body, and she felt extremely out of her depth. What if she dropped him, or hurt him? What if something went wrong?

But, she did her best to pinch the embers of those thoughts out of existence, drying her hands and hurrying back to the bed to situate herself between Vash's legs.

Her eyes bugged out. Just in the short time it had taken to wash her hands, she could tell the baby had already moved down a lot. It had probably taken Vash thirty minutes of work for that amount of progress with baby girl. Sweat prickled the back of her neck. 

Okay...okay. Calm down. Nick had done it, Meryl could, too. But Nick had much bigger hands than she did, what if she couldn't get a grip on—

She twitched in surprise at the sudden yelp Vash let out. Focus, Stryfe! The baby's head was already so close, pushing Vash's birth canal outward into a small mound.

"Wonderful job, sweetheart." Meryl gave Vash's thigh a feather-light pat, unsure of how much he would want her to touch him. "Great pushing."

Vash gulped a quick, huge breath in and pushed again, his face and neck blooming red and his chin tucked downward. Meryl's pulse skyrocketed at the sight of slicked-down hair parting the bloody edges of Vash's birth canal.

Hair that was unmistakably dark.

Here came the tears again, squeezing her lungs and burning her eyes. Meryl wasn't sure she would have a drop of water left in her body once this day was over.

"I see his hair," she managed to creak out, fumbling for the mirror so the others could see. "It's really dark, I...I think it might be black!"

"How marvelous! One of each hair color!" Milly squealed.

Something beautiful and vulnerable gripped Wolfwood's features, and Vash panted through an exhausted smile, tears filling his eyes, his breath fogging up the oxygen mask.

"Got his dad's hair," he breathed, letting his head fall back and gazing up and Wolfwood, who leaned down and kissed his beauty mark with so much tenderness that Meryl felt like she needed to run a lap around the infirmary to dispel the fierce adoration she felt for both of them before it made her shake apart from the inside.

Later.

After catching his breath for a few seconds, Vash sank into another hard push, gritting his teeth.

Meryl saw Milly tense up. "Uhm, ma'am, you might want to—"

Several things happened simultaneously, so lightning-quick that Meryl was dizzied by it, looking back.

Vash emitted a hoarse, hair-raising scream, startling in its sheer abruptness; the baby's head surged forward out of him so suddenly that Meryl had no time to apply counterpressure; she gasped and, too late, tried to reach up and do so, but the head was already out.

"Oh—"

Barely a second went by of cradling her godson's slimy head in her shaking hand before his shoulders, body, and legs burst forth with the rest of Vash's amniotic fluid. With a jerk and a curt, pinched "ohmyGod," Meryl fumbled to catch him, trying her best to hold him like she'd seen Wolfwood hold their daughter. He was warm, so unbelievably warm and slippery, with subtle patterns of light etched into his skin that looked nearly identical to his sister's. He arched his back in Meryl's hands, eyes squeezed shut, hacking out a scary, waterlogged noise that sounded like someone trying to suck paint through a straw. Fluid oozed from his tiny nostrils. Other than that, he was eerily silent.

...Oh, God, he was here. Vash had just...it was over already. In three pushes. Little man was out.

Meryl's mind caught up with her body and promptly freaked out.

Her heart thundering in her ears, Meryl aimed a look of poorly-veiled panic up at Wolfwood and Milly and Vash. The former two were gaping down at her, while the latter was pale-faced and completely limp against the mountain of pillows, too winded and overwhelmed to do anything but heave for air.

"Jesus Christ," Wolfwood uttered.

Judith appeared at Meryl's side with a rubber bulb, sticking the narrow nozzle of it up the baby's nostrils one by one and sucking the fluid out, which finally provoked some bleating and coughing from him. His little eyes popped wide open, looking around as if to say, "what on earth was just in my nose?!"

"Is he alright?" Meryl sniffled and blinked tears from her eyes as she shifted little man in her hands, cradling him more comfortably while Judith clamped his umbilical cord and listened to his heart. Her itty bitty godson looked up at her with huge blue eyes just like his sister's and a wrinkled forehead, and it was such a miniature, flawless replica of Vash's puppy dog face that Meryl might have laughed hysterically if she hadn't been so jarred by his quick arrival.

"He's fine, honey. He's pink, he's breathing good, and he's very alert. It's not terribly common, but some babies are just real quiet when they're born, that's all," Judith promised, helping Meryl lift the baby over Vash's deflated stomach to arrange him on his chest and cover him with a fresh blanket. One of Vash's hands dragged up to rest over him, and wow, he really was smaller than his sister.

Misty-eyed, Wolfwood stroked little man's damp, black hair. "Hey there, nugget. Nice of you to join us."

"Oh, shit, he came out fast," Vash wobbled out in a brittle tone, exhaling afterward and sucking another shuddering breath in. His hand was trembling violently. "Oh m-my God..."

"You're okay, dear," Judith said quietly to Vash. Meryl saw her keeping an eagle eye on his vitals. "Deep breaths. Get that oxygen to your brain. You're almost all done, now. All that's left are the placentas." She gently pushed his legs apart to examine him.

Vash's head tipped sideways on the pillow, and he breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, his chin quivering like it had a few hours ago. Feeling helpless, Meryl petted his leg, realizing too late that her hands were still dripping, then crawled off the bed to go wash her hands.

"I've only ever seen one baby come out that fast," Milly murmured. "One of my sisters-in-law had her baby girl in about two hours total."

Vash whimpered. "I think I might envy her."

"They call that precipitous labor," Judith explained. "Thankfully not what happened here, because there are much higher risks for complications. This was totally normal and happens all the time with twins."

"Never mind, then," Vash slurred without missing a beat.

"He was just ready to follow his sister, he didn't want to wait," Meryl reasoned with a tearful giggle, returning to stand beside the bed and placing her hand on little man's back.

Judith blotted a fresh towel between Vash's legs. "Very minor tearing, but nothing that will require stitches. You should heal from it easily."

Wolfwood snorted, seeming like he was trying to hide how jittery he still was. "Well, the way was pretty well paved."

Vash smacked him feebly, wiping sweat from his brow. Wolfwood made pointed eye contact with him and raised his eyebrows in a silent are you okay? Vash nodded and closed his eyes, still panting. Wolfwood draped his free arm around his shoulders, and Vash leaned into him, shivering. Is he okay? Wolfwood mouthed at Judith, angling his head down toward Vash. With a patient smile, she silently nodded.

Her chest hard and cold, Meryl crawled up onto the bed beside Vash, wrapping her arms around his neck and swallowing back a sudden sob. She felt Wolfwood's big hand cover the top of her head.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know he would come out so fast," she managed to squeeze out before a river of uncontrollable sobs broke free. She felt like a stripped wire, hot-cold to the touch and brimming with too much energy.

"Oh, babydoll, no..." Vash's cheek pressed to the side of her head. "You couldn't have known that was going to happen, it's okay. I'm fine, and so is he. You did so well."

"I'm so glad you're okay," she blubbered, muffling her sniffles and weeping in his clammy shoulder. "You're all okay, you're all okay..."

Silently, Judith nestled baby girl—who was now swaddled snugly and asleep—on the other side of Vash's chest. Milly hugged Vash, squishing Meryl between them, and Wolfwood reached over to ruffle Milly's hair. Meryl's tears seemed to be contagious, because soon, all four of them were snuggled together wiping tears away, gazing down at the precious products of Vash's long, hard labor.

As she cupped the back of baby girl's fuzzy little head in her hand, Meryl couldn't help but remember the last time they'd cried over a pair of twins.

That had been one of the saddest days of her life. She would never be able to forget Vash's exhausted, empty eyes, nor Wolfwood's silent despair...nor the mournful regret she'd sensed in Roberto.

But now, here in the present, there was only relief and joy.

Vash sniffled wetly. "So, um. Judy."

Judith looked over from where she was setting up the scale to weigh the babies. "Yes?"

He closed his eyes with a weary smile that almost looked like a cringe.

"...when would be a good time to tell you her head broke my tailbone...?"

There was a beat of absolute, silent shock from all four of his companions. Then, in one accord, they screeched.

"WHAT!?"

 

⁌

 

Somehow, even with their son nursing from him and their daughter cradled in Meryl's loving arms, Vash could still hardly believe it was all real.

Though, every hard pull of baby sustenance through his chest reminded him. Newborn suckling reflexes were like a vice seal on a jar of preservatives, insanely strong and damn near unbreakable. It felt like someone was pulling tar out of his nipple instead of...whatever it was he was producing. Judy said it was molecularly similar to the stuff human moms produced right after giving birth, but he couldn't remember the name. He could barely remember his own name. He was running on fumes, here.

But, God...he'd really done it. He'd had the little beans.

Well, he'd almost done it. He'd groaned in soul-deep dread when he'd felt the first contraction brought on by little man nursing, but at least this wasn't going to be nearly as arduous as pushing two babies out.

He was pretty sure that was going to be what he compared every ache and pain he suffered to from now until the end of time. No matter how bad it hurt, surely it didn't hurt as bad as shoving two kids through his skinny hips.

Judith was between his legs, gloved hands examining the severed cords still hanging from his birth canal and gently pressing just above his pubic bone. "Ready to get these placentas out? They're both detached."

"Ready as I'll ever be," Vash sighed. Milly helped him scoot up a bit further, and oh, God, he was more exhausted than he'd ever been in his life. He was pretty sure he was seeing a flare of color in his vision with every sound he heard. That had to be normal, right?

"Alright, honey." Judith was so quiet and soft. He could tell she felt bad for him. "Gentle pushes with those contractions." She gathered the cords in one hand, holding them taut but not pulling.

Slow, even breaths pressed from Vash's lips as he carefully bore down with the building contraction squeezing him, finally letting Wolfwood hold the hand that wasn't cradling little man. The danger of breaking his hand was long over, and Vash could tell it had killed Wolfwood to not be able to give Vash his hand during labor.

Pushing when his uterus was so taxed felt a little bit like a knife slowly sliding into his lower belly, but he could handle it. Again, no comparison whatsoever.

Solid pressure tugging low down in his pelvis made him whine. He closed his eyes, sweat prickling his forehead.

"Doin' good, needle noggin."

"You're almost done, sweetheart."

"Nearly there, Mr. Vash."

"You've seen this plenty of times, Milly, but fair warning, Meryl and Nicholas," Judith murmured. "Placentas look pretty alarming, and there might be a good amount of blood. Vash essentially has two open wounds in his uterus right now. But I promise, he's okay. His vitals are strong, and so are his contractions. They'll close those blood vessels."

Meryl gulped. "Th-thanks, Miss Judy."

"Just going to tuck this pan under your bottom, Vash..." cool metal touched his skin. "Good push. That's the way. You won't have to do much more."

She was right. Within thirty seconds, Vash felt a large, gelatinous mass of something spill out of him in a hot rush of what was probably blood, then a second one exactly like it seconds after that. He heard the tinny sound of blood trickling into the pan Judith held, and smelled the iron of it on the air.

"Holy fuckin' shit," Wolfwood swore under his breath, while Meryl laughed, warbly and high-pitched, like she sometimes did when her blood sugar was too low. "Didn't know you were growin' two aliens from outer space in there along with the kids, blondie."

That made Vash open his eyes. Distantly marveling at the fact that his belly was small enough to see over, he peered into the pan Judith was presenting to him with a grin, studying the veiny, bloody blobs of muscle and tissue that had come out of him. The branching blood vessels that led up to the umbilical cords resembled thick tree roots.

"...whoa," Vash whispered, fascinated and the tiniest bit nauseated. "I made those?"

"You sure did. Two entirely new organs that your body grew. And they nourished your babies for twenty-five weeks and three days, which is the equivalent of almost thirty-eight weeks. Nearly a full nine months. You basically carried them full term." Judith's eyes were shining. "You should be proud. That's a real accomplishment."

For some reason, there was a lump in his throat.

He'd never had a placenta before.

"I'm gonna sound like I'm off my rocker," he laughed, slightly choked up. "But is there any way to keep those somehow?"

"Sounds perfectly normal. A lot of mothers preserve them in one way or another. Humans have been doing that for hundreds of years." Judith carried the pan to a nearby counter top. "We can freeze them until you decide how you want to do it."

"Okay. Oh." Vash looked down when the uncomfortable suction around his nipple broke. Little man was working his tiny tongue, eyes half-lidded. "Did you get enough, buddy?" He wiped a yellowish drop from the corner of the baby's lips—

His eyes widened.

In the woozy aftermath of birth, it had somehow slipped through the cracks of his mind. Maybe he was just...too used to seeing it, and his brain had redacted the info.

His throat stung as he brushed the pad of his thumb over his son's right cheekbone, where a beauty mark proudly stood, faint but unmistakable.

It would probably darken as he got older. For all the things Vash had never gotten to ask Rem, he did remember asking her if he and Nai had been born with their beauty marks, and she'd said yes, but that they had been light at first and had darkened significantly over the course of a few weeks.

Before he could stop them, tears slid down Vash's cheeks. Tears of frustration and anger, feelings that were a single year younger than he was.

The twins would never know their Uncle Nai. Even though it was definitely for the better, it still tore Vash's heart up the middle and made him sick with grief.

He thought back to the story Milly had told about her uncle, how much love and admiration had been in her voice and face. The twins could've had a kind, caring uncle like that, but Nai had seen to it that it would never be.

Vash hated him. He loved him.

Seeing the matching beauty mark on his son's face only strengthened his resolve.

"You okay?"

He looked up to see Meryl regarding him with unease, adjusting their slumbering baby girl in her arms.

"I want to name them." He sniffled, wiping his face with his free hand. "I'm tired of calling them baby girl and little man. They need names."

Wolfwood gave him that thin-lipped frown of concern. "Shouldn't you get some shut-eye before they get hungry again?"

Vash shook his head. "It's okay. I'm too keyed up to sleep right now, anyway."

He just hoped this wouldn’t be a disaster.

 

⁌

 

With some water and crackers under his belt and fresh sheets to lie on and cover him, Vash seemed like he felt a bit more human. Wolfwood could tell from the way he moved that he was sore and uncomfortable, though. He probably would be until his cervical tear healed all the way.

Meryl brought out her notebook with a flourish, handing it to Vash and then sitting back down on the bed next to Wolfwood. Seeming a bit nervous, Vash flipped it open to a page near the end, holding it over both babies' backs. They were stretched out on their tummies on his chest, snuggled together like two peas in a pod and blissfully snoozing away.

It was crazy to think that those two little sprouts had both been curled up in Vash's belly half a day ago. They were pretty petite, but they were still five pounds and some change each. In fact, baby girl was nearly six pounds.

"Are you still sure about letting me choose the names?" Vash asked them meekly.

Meryl nodded to Wolfwood, sure and content. "Course we are," he answered. "You deserve to."

After never getting to name any of the others.

"Well...alright. I want to use a name that each of us picked out, if that's okay," Vash said, fiddling with the edge of the paper. "Four of us, four names, right? Two first, two middle."

Milly seemed taken aback, pointing to herself. "Me, too?"

Vash smiled up at her. "Of course. Are you alright with that?"

Her eyes reddened. She scrubbed her nose on the back of her hand. "Yeah," her voice cracked. Meryl's expression was proud and protective. It reminded Wolfwood of Roberto, Lord rest him. 

"For baby girl—and I promise this is the only non-traditional name," Vash quickly prefaced, and they all chuckled.

"Sounds promising," Wolfwood jeered.

"You haven't even heard it yet!"

"We ain't namin' her 'Geranium.'"

"...okay, but that's not a bad suggestion, we could call her 'Gerry'—"

"Hell no."

"No fun." Vash stroked baby girl's light, wispy hair. Having been given a quick rinse, it practically sparkled in the light now, such a light shade of blonde it was nearly white. She shifted in her sleep, pouty lips smooshed on Vash's chest. She was the prettiest little belle Wolfwood had ever seen, and he'd never been more proud. "You guys know that my mother's name was Rem. I wanted to incorporate her name, somehow, but I didn't want to just name her 'Rem."

Wolfwood squinted. "We ain't namin' her 'Remington', either."

"Oh my God, Nick, let him speak," Meryl laughed.

"Not Remington," Vash snorted, then smiled softly down at the babies. "...A few weeks ago, Milly suggested 'Remedy' for her first name. I know it's a little cheesy, but I just couldn't get it out of my head. We could call her Remy, or we could use her middle name if we feel like that one fits her personality better. Either way, I think I'm too attached to let go of it."

Remedy...

Wolfwood turned the name over in his head, reaching out to rub his knuckle against their daughter's silky soft arm. He studied her sweet face, imagined calling her "Remy".

She did kinda seem like a Remy. It seemed inane to ascribe personality to a newborn, but she was pretty fierce so far. Remy was a good, rough-and-tumble nickname.

And then there was the meaning behind it. Even if it was on the nose, it was special. 

"I'm not going to lie, I don't hate it," Meryl admitted. "I looked at that one a few times, myself."

Vash lit up, elated. "Really?"

"I ain't against it, either." Wolfwood gazed down at their daughter. "Kinda suits her, if I'm honest. I'm all for it. Remy, huh..."

"Mm. Me too," Meryl added.

Milly pressed her hand over her heart, visibly swallowing. She wiped her eyes. "I'm so glad you liked the name. I think the nickname is just precious, too. Your mother would be so proud, Mr. Vash."

Baby blues glistened. Vash's smile was tiny, grieved, but real. Then, he looked down at their son, kissing his dark crop of hair. 

"For our little man, here...I really loved one of the very first names you ever mentioned, Nick. 'James'. Jamie is a good nickname if he needs one." Vash's throat worked with unspoken words before he continued. "It means a lot of things, but my favorite is 'the supplanter'."

Milly tilted her head. "What does that mean?"

Vash's gaze was plainly fixed on the beauty mark on James' right cheekbone.

"'One who supercedes.' Replacing the old with the new."

An understanding silence fell. Wolfwood laid his hand on Vash's shoulder, brushing his thumb against an old burn scar.

"That's really beautiful," Meryl whispered.

Wolfwood had to agree. It was an old classic. Timeless. 

"Jamie is real cute," he murmured. "And James plus his middle name will be good for when he's acting up."

Though he suspected Remy would be the troublemaker of the two. Call it fatherly instinct. 

Vash chuckled. "Now, for miss priss' middle name." He trailed his fingers up and down her delicate spine, and she whuffed out a little sigh in her sleep. "Meryl wrote it down not too long after you girls came back. 'Liora'. It means, 'light unto me'."

"Remedy Liora," Wolfwood mused. "Rolls off the tongue nicely."

"And it's perfect since her hair is the color of sunlight," Milly cooed.

"I love both names so much, I'm not sure which one to call her, honestly," Vash admitted. "I'd like to try both for a while first, just to see which one feels right. I had never heard that name before Meryl found it, but it's just really beautiful, you know? It's rare to find a name I've never heard before."

Wolfwood smirked. "Thought you'd seen and heard it all, old man?"

Vash breathed out a whimpery laugh and rubbed his greatly diminished waistline. "Not hardly." The nervousness from before was seeping back into to his eyes, a skittish look that Wolfwood didn't often see. "Um. James' middle name was a little...difficult for me."

In the corner of Wolfwood's eye, Meryl tensed up the slightest bit. Suddenly, he felt wary, himself.

Vash took a deep breath. "At first, I wanted to name him after Nai."

Wolfwood's chest bled hard and cold, his blood pressure tangibly increasing. He hoped the struggle to not step away for a breather didn't show on his face, but he could actually hear how rigid his jaw muscles were. Somehow, he managed to keep his voice level, even if his words were forced through gritted teeth.

"I would...rather you didn't."

Vash reached out his hand. Despite every buried instinct screaming at him to bat Vash's hand away and storm away, Wolfwood grasped it tightly, instead.

"I know." Vash's eyes had that sincere compassion in them, the infinite love he had for humanity. The sickness Wolfwood used to feel over such a look writhed somewhere in a cobweb-covered corner, still there but neatly compartmentalized. "I considered it for half a second, but I won't do that to you. It would be wrong." Vash paused. "So I started looking for names that contained that syllable, instead." His hand wandered to his belly, probably out of habit, but then moved to rest over the sleeping twins, as if he'd forgotten he'd already had them. "While I was on bed rest, I ran out of books to read, so I was thumbing through your old Bible, and I came across the story about the man that healed Saul's blindness."

The ice that had been creeping up Wolfwood's heart began to thaw.

"Ananias of Damascus," he rasped.

Vash nodded, something tender and pleading in his eyes. "It means 'God has given'. Their middle names go together."

"...'God has given light unto me'," Meryl said in quiet realization. She held her knuckles to her lips, tears sparkling in her eyes. "Oh, Vash."

Vash's eyes glistened. "It's true. In so many ways." He lifted his chin in her direction, and she dipped down to kiss him, cupping his cheek in one petite hand.

Despite his herculean effort, Wolfwood's lower lip quivered. He had to let go of Vash's hand to scrub his own hand down his face, stopping to grasp at his mouth.

"So...it's not exactly Nai's name, but...there's a piece of it in there." Vash's eyes had puddled up, looking down at James. "The good piece. I know it seems insane to say that about Millions Knives, but...at one time, it was there." He sniffled and wiped his nose with his wrist, and Meryl caressed his shoulder with a soft coo under her breath. "I just wish he could've..."

Milly brushed her fingers through Vash's hair. "It's a pity he didn't realize what he had before it was too late," she murmured.

Wolfwood wouldn't dare say it to Vash, but he didn't feel a single scrap of pity for Knives. In fact, with their own kids out in the world now, he would even go so far as to say he was glad Knives was dead. He hoped that motherfucker did have a soul, so he could burn to a never-ending crisp in hell where he belonged.

It was Vash he truly pitied. He knew just how much Vash loved his brother, even to this very day, and it filled Wolfwood with dark and bottomless rage that Knives' final, sadistic act of cruelty against his little brother's malleable heart had been making Vash believe that he was the reason Knives was the way he was.

A lie straight from the lips of Satan. Nai had been dead since the Great Fall, and by his own hand. Vash hadn't done a damn thing to him but love him. And, you know. Protest Knives committing genocide on an entire species just because a handful of them were bad people. Unforgivable, clearly.

Thank the Lord Almighty that their kids could grow up untouched by that lunatic's shadow.

But...all that being said, maybe it wouldn't kill Wolfwood to let Vash have this. It was a beautiful name, and he could tell Vash wanted it so badly. 

"James Ananias, huh," he said slowly, testing the name in his mouth. Just like Liora's, a sense of rightness settled over the sound. Wolfwood reaching out to brush his fingertips over James' messy, charcoal locks, arranging it across his velvety forehead. It felt like expensive silk threads. "That's a fine, upstanding name for a little feller."

Vash's relief dawned on his face gently, and he let out a quiet sigh, closing his eyes and kissing the top of Jamie's little head. Wolfwood thumbed a tear from the corner of his eye.

"Thank you, Nicholas," he whispered. "It...means a lot. More than you know."

Wolfwood's lips pursed, almost a smile. He leaned over to drop a kiss on Vash's mouth. "Helps that the meanings are real pretty together," he murmured.

"I love them," Meryl declared. "Remedy Liora Wolfwood and James Ananias Wolfwood are the most gorgeous names I've ever heard."

"Hear hear!" Milly beamed. "They're absolutely perfect."

Vash caught Wolfwood's eye and tilted his head in Meryl's direction. Wolfwood straightened in question, and Vash gave a subtle nod.

"I dunno, they sound a bit incomplete to me." Wolfwood paused for dramatic effect when Meryl looked at him and narrowed those gorgeous blue eyes in confusion. "Wolfwood-Stryfe would sound a whole lot better."

After a half second, Meryl's eyes snapped wide. "What?" Her astounded gaze darted between them. "No, no, you should use Vash's last name, not mine, I'm not—"

"I don't have one, doll," Vash interrupted, as soft and gentle as the day was long. "Saverem was Rem's name. Not mine. I have no legal surname." He took her hand, laced their fingers. Her hand looked so precious and cherished in his obsidian grasp. "They're yours, too. I want their names to reflect that." His eyes roved over her face with reverence that left no room for doubt. "Please. I want this. I've wanted it since New Moab."

Wolfwood had never seen such a beautiful mixture of exultation and anguish on a human face before. Meryl's eyes were reddened from shedding so many tears already, but her nose and lips flushed pink with the onset of more. She hung her head, and tears dripped onto her thighs.

Her voice came out airy and compressed. "Are you sure?"

"More sure than I've ever been in my life," Vash whispered, caressing her delicate wrist with his prosthetic thumb.

"Count me into that, too." Wolfwood reached to tip Meryl's chin up and wipe away the warm tears from her pinkened cheeks with his thumbs. Her forehead was scrunched, her eyes glinting and shimmering like cracked azurite. She sniffled wetly, lurching forward to cling to him without a care in the world that he hadn't changed shirts yet, and Wolfwood folded his arms around her petite frame, tightly squeezing her back and hiding his lips in her hair.

His heart gave a brief, tight flutter that was somewhat uncomfortable, but he quickly snuffed it out and gathered his courage from the tender look in Vash's eyes.

"I love you, prissy lady," Wolfwood whispered against the warm little shell of Meryl's ear. "More'n I can say."

Meryl coughed out a weak sob into his chest. "I think it might actually piss me off a little bit how much I love you, undertaker."

Vash and Milly burst into soft giggles, with sprinkled-in grunts of discomfort from Vash laughing a little too hard. Wolfwood buried his uncontrollable grin in Meryl's sweet-smelling neck, heart pumping and soaring more than it ever had on the serum.

He used to wonder, bones cracked into pieces and struggling to heal as he writhed on the floor of his cell, if he would ever have happiness like this.

No more wondering.

"Not trying to interrupt, but I'm going to give you all some time alone," Milly said softly, rising from the bed and then leaning down to give Vash a tiny peck on the forehead and each baby the lightest pat. "I can barely keep my eyes open."

"Go get some shuteye." Vash squeezed her hand. "Thank you for staying. It means the world."

Milly rounded the bed to wrap her arms around both Meryl and Wolfwood at once; Meryl rubbed her shoulder, and Wolfwood scratched his knuckles on top of her head. "Thank you for letting me. It was one of the most special experiences of my life so far." She surveyed them with a fond smile. "I'll see you in a few hours."

Meryl nestled further against Wolfwood. "Sleep well, Milly."

"Later, big girl."

"Bye bye." With that, Milly was off.

Wolfwood silently thanked her. He had a feeling she'd played a huge part in keeping Vash grounded through labor. He wondered if she knew how valuable that was.

With a tight, pained noise, Vash shifted a bit further down on the pillows. "C'mere, you two. You're too far away."

Meryl gingerly crawled over Vash's legs to rest on his other side, and he draped his arm around her. Wolfwood stretched out beside Vash, head propped on his hand and the other covering the babies. Both of their backs together still weren't as wide as his whole hand. Tiny sprouts.

For a while, the three of them just stared down at their children in awe, unable to take their eyes off the twins. Jamie shifted in his sleep, cuddling closer to his sister, who was suckling in her dreams.

Wolfwood didn't think he'd ever seen something so sweet. He had a feeling they would be thick as thieves.

"I can't believe this is real," Vash finally broke the silence. "I just keep thinking it can’t be possible."

Meryl traced her fingertips down Liora's downy tufts of hair.

"And yet," she murmured.

Nothing else really needed to be said.

The proof was right in front of them, peacefully snoozing on Vash the Stampede's scarred, battered chest.

 

⁌

 

An hour and a half later, as Luida sat on the edge of Vash's bed and he placed his daughter in her arms, it still felt like a dream.

Or maybe that was sleep deprivation starting to talk. 

"She's beautiful, Vash," Luida whispered, adjusting Liora in the crook of her elbow with ease and supporting her bottom with the other hand. Her dark lashes were lowered over proud, sparkling eyes. "Hi, sweet angel." She smiled up at Vash. "This is exactly what I imagine you would've looked like as a newborn. She favors you quite a bit."

Vash scratched his head, thankful that his hair was clean now. That shower had felt like murder at the time, but now that it was done thanks to Meryl's and Wolfwood's help, he felt like an entirely new man. He'd never felt so amazing in his life as he had right after that scalding hot shower and the soothing stream of a lukewarm witch hazel and aloe solution on his tender birth canal from a peri bottle. He felt like he could fight a supernova right now. He'd expected to crash hard after getting clean, but he was still too wound up on baby hormones. That was fine. Sleep was for the weak, and the color of sound was fun to watch. Hell, he may never sleep again. Not with two incredible babies to coo over.

"Really? I think she favors Nick a lot more," Vash said.

"She's an even mix of both of you," Meryl corrected, gazing down at Liora's drowsy face. She'd just nursed again, so she was milk drunk, and it was too precious for words to adequately describe. Sleepy little darling.

Meanwhile, Wolfwood was transferring James into Brad's hands, and though Brad was huffing and blustering to cover up his nerves, his hold on James was safe, if a little awkward.

"I'll be goddamned," he murmured thickly, holding James close to his face. Unlike Liora, James was a bit more alert after his meal, surveying his grandpa's face with a curious wrinkle on his teeny forehead. "Hey, kiddo. Look at all that hair you got. Lookin' like a little clone of your dad, huh."

Vash didn't miss the stunned look on Wolfwood's face that faded into a pleased, proud smile.

The press of tears in his eyes made Vash blink, grateful beyond all description for the sweet scenes playing out in front of him.

Slowly, their conversations faded to a low hum in his ears.

 

⁌

 

Sometime during her fawning over Liora's pretty cornsilk hair and sweet little nose with Luida, Meryl distantly realized that Vash had been awfully quiet for a couple of minutes.

When she turned to look at him, her heart squeezed, then melted and dripped out of her ribs in sheer love.

Vash was fast asleep. His head had tipped sideways on the pillow and his brow was smooth and lax, the very picture of exhausted contentment. His hands still unconsciously rested over his belly, still a bit swollen but not nearly as much so.

Meryl's eyes filled with tears.

Seeing Vash finally get the rest he so richly deserved, unburdened by the massive stress he'd carried on his shoulders for twenty-five grueling weeks, his heart calm and the battle won, steadied the residual shakiness in Meryl's soul.

She would probably still have a few bad dreams of the delivery taking a turn for the worse over the next few days, but each time, she knew she was going to wake up in reality, where Vash and Wolfwood were there to hold her through the aftermath and her godchildren were safe and healthy.

That was all she could ever ask for.

Luida followed her gaze, and the sweetest expression of maternal love rested quietly upon her aging face. The others quieted, too, looking over at Vash with varying levels of adoration.

Perhaps one day, he would fully realize how loved he truly was.

"He deserves that sleep more than anyone's ever deserved anything before," Brad whispered.

And Wolfwood, soft-eyed and gentle, said, "yeah, he does."

 

 

 

 

⁌ BONUS ⁌

 

"Mamaaa?"

Vash lifted his head and mopped his face on his forearm, shielding his eyes to peer down from the roof. Jamie was waving up at him, squinting in the noonday sunslight. The wind rustled through his charcoal hair; he needed a trim soon.

Removing the nails he'd been holding between his teeth, Vash smiled down at his son. "Yeah, buddy?"

Jamie clasped his hands behind his back, rocking on his heels. "Aunt Milly said to go tell you it's time to wash up for lunch."

"I'll be inside in just a second, I want to finish this shingle. Did you tell your dad?"

"Yup. He was fixing that squeaky ceiling fan in the common room."

"Good job. Where's your sister?"

Jamie fiddled with his fingers, chewing the inside of his cheek. "Setting the table with kaachan and Aunt Milly."

Vash squinted and set his hammer down. "Did your kaachan help Milly with lunch?"

"I can't tell you that she said, 'don't tell your mom and dad I was in here chopping veggies or they'll have a fit'."

Ah, the innocence of a child. Maybe the shingle could wait, then.

Vash swiftly descended the ladder and slapped his palms across his thighs to get the dust and sand off his pants, trying his best to keep from bursting out laughing. "You definitely better not tell me, then." He ran his fingers through Jamie's messy hair, and Jamie reached up to grab his wrist, hugging it to his chest. His big blue eyes gazed up at Vash, reflecting the faintest Plant markings in the sunslight.

Despite looking like he was approaching seven years old, he was still only four, and the ground Vash walked on was sacred in his eyes.

"C'mon." Vash offered his hand. "Let's go eat, I'm starving."

"Me too!"

Swinging their hands between them, Vash and Jamie strolled leisurely through the Hopeland compound toward the guest house where they stayed, listening to the noise of hammers rapping and serrated blades sawing and voices directing. Every year around this time, everyone pitched in to spruce up the buildings, fixing up the wear and tear that resulted from the harsh desert winds. Even some of the kids got in on the painting, though more paint usually ended up on faces and arms than walls.

Vash and Wolfwood and Meryl had specifically planned to make their monthly, week-long trip to the orphanage fall on this week so they could lend their hands around the compound in any way they could, doing odd jobs and helping repair things, and Milly had driven from Bernardelli HQ to meet them for a few days. In addition to being able to give back to Nick's old home, it felt like quite the family reunion. Especially since the twins had friends at the orphanage that they frequently wrote back and forth with.

Miss Melanie was always so touched by their willingness to help. Vash loved that lady so much; what a gem she was.

When they stepped over the threshold of the guest house's kitchen door, Jamie ran to meet Milly, who was carrying a platter of sandwiches to the table where a stockpot of vegetable soup and a stack of bowls also sat. Vash paused for a second, returning Milly's cheerful wave and leaning against the door frame for a moment, crossing his arms.

Sure enough, Meryl was already at the sink, apron strings tied at her back. Liora, who was placing napkins beside every place setting, looked up at Vash, lit up, looked back at Meryl, and then gave Vash a sheepish shrug that reminded him an awful lot of Milly. Vash answered with a shake of his head and a smile of his own and held his finger to his mouth.

He pushed off the door frame and crossed the kitchen, patting Liora's ivory locks and nudging a kiss onto her temple on his way by, earning a grin that showed off the gap where the tooth she'd lost a couple of days ago used to be. She was still so proud.

When he placed his hands on Meryl's shoulders, she didn't quite jump, but it was a near thing.

"Whatcha doin' over here, pretty thing?"

Meryl didn't pause. "Washing dishes, clearly. Phew, you need a shower."

"Hmm." Vash leaned down to squish his cheek on the little whorl in her silky black hair and loop his arms around her slim shoulders. "Don't you think it would make more sense to let someone who doesn't have a basketball for a belly wash the dishes so they can at least reach the sink? Ow!" Meryl's soapy fingers had reached back and snagged his earring, tugging on it, and he made a terrific show of slapping the counter top a few times. "Don't tear it out, doll, mercy, mercy!"

"Oh, I'm barely pulling it! Don't be dramatic." Meryl tossed a flat look over her shoulder and wiping her wet hand on the front of the apron draped over her protruding stomach. "I can reach the sink just fine, smarty pants. Just because you people think I should lie around like a fat sow and do nothing all day doesn't mean I'm going to do it. Besides, Miss Judy said it's good for me to move around some. I would go stir-crazy if I rested as much as you want me to."

Vash nuzzled her cheek and pressed a kiss there, grinning when it heated up under his lips. "I just remember how much it made my feet hurt, is all. And you're not fat."

Meryl harrumphed. "Tell that to my hips."

"Okay." Vash bent double and pressed his mouth to Meryl's hip. "You're not fat." Then, he moved a bit further forward to kiss the side of her baby bump. Her stomach twitched upward for half a second with her exasperated giggle, slender fingers carding through his hair.

"Goofball. Where's Nick?"

"Right behind you, wonderin' why in tarnation you're up on your feet doin' menial chores," drawling words came from behind them. Wolfwood's arms draped around them both, one on Vash's shoulders and the other hand resting on Meryl's. He was still wearing his shades.

"Ugh, these sweaty, stinky men! Milly, tell them I'll be fine," Meryl directed over her other shoulder.

"She really will be," Milly immediately assured. "If she feels good enough to do things, she should while she still can."

Wolfwood and Vash shared a dubious glance.

"I can hear that look. You're both such alarmists," Meryl sniffed, placing a few spoons and knives in the dish drainer. "I was just washing up the utensils we used to make lunch, anyway. It's not like I'm cartwheeling around the room, for goodness' sake. I would've been done way before now if it weren't for your fretting."

Wolfwood cocked one dark eyebrow. "Excuse my concern when you look like you could drop that kid any second now."

"Nick!" Vash squawked.

"She's only thirty-four weeks," Milly scolded, but a laugh broke through, betraying her.

But, as always, Meryl gave as good as she got. She dried her hands on a nearby towel and then smacked Wolfwood's arm with said towel, glaring up at him.

"If you both weren't skyscrapers, maybe I wouldn't already look like a watermelon on legs."

Wolfwood propped his elbow on her head, sneering down at her with his shades low on his nose. "Well, maybe if you weren't the size of one of them fancy little purse dogs—"

"Okayyy! Maybe don't antagonize the pregnant lady," Vash laughed nervously, catching Meryl's wrist when her eyes flashed and her fist balled up.

"I'm just pickin', babe," Wolfwood chuckled as he set his shades on top of his head, holding Meryl's shoulders and planting a lingering apology kiss on her ruddy cheek that she haughtily received with her nose held high and her arms crossed overtop her big belly. "Ain't your fault the sprout's hefty. That's all us."

Either one of them. They weren't sure which one of them was the culprit, and it didn't really matter in Vash's eyes, but it was safe to say that either of their genes plus Meryl's small stature equaled a whole lot of back pain for her. Her bump was already about the same size Vash had been at full term with the twins.

Thank God she was only having one.

Wolfwood's frequent comments about "the dangers of Chihuahuas and Great Danes breeding" didn't exactly douse the coals of Meryl's ire, but Vash knew she played up her grousing and complaining a lot to provoke a playful argument, and that her true feelings were tender and protective. It had taken her quite a few times to get pregnant when they'd started trying, and she'd burst into tears of joy when the first positive test cropped up.

She loved their baby to the moons and back, and God, so did Vash. It was different to be on this end of pregnancy, but he delighted in it just as much.

"Lunch is ready, mama." Liora had appeared at Vash's side, wriggling past him to hug Meryl from the side. She was extra clingy with her lately, knowing her baby brother or sister was getting closer. Meryl wrapped her arm around her goddaughter and kissed the top of her head. "Is the baby asleep, kaachan?"

"They are," Meryl said apologetically as they all moved to the table to sit. She let out a tight oof when she sat down that Vash felt deep in his soul. "I'll let you know when they wake up, though. It'll probably be soon, since I'm about to eat."

"After meal kicks are super comfy," Vash chuckled, sitting next to Jamie and tickling the side of his neck; Jamie giggled and shrugged away. "You two used to kick me really hard after meals. Especially when I drank something cold."

"Looked like they were trying to break through your skin sometimes," Wolfwood added, scooping up a spoonful of soup and blowing on it. Both of the twins shrieked.

"Dad!" "Gross!"

"Hey, hey. Were at the table, mind your manners," Vash gently chided.

Both of them immediately sat up straighter and nodded. If there was one thing he was grateful for, it was that the kids were well-behaved so far. They almost always listened. Almost.

"I think this kid is running out of room to do that," Meryl muttered, crossly nibbling her sandwich. Milly gave her a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. "Already feel like I can't breathe most days."

"Only about another month," Milly consoled her.

Meryl smiled with her teeth. "Yeah. Then I'll give birth to a toddler."

Vash winced in vicarious dread. The baby already weighed close to seven pounds by Judith's estimation. They were on track to be at least eight pounds by the time they were born. The thought of pushing out a baby that big sounded like a nightmare to him and his male-leaning pelvis, but Meryl was determined to try. Judith had measured her pelvic structure with an MRI a couple of months before she'd gotten pregnant, and she seemed to think Meryl would be fine, but...yikes. Vash felt like he'd nearly given up the ghost with two five pound babies.

Eight pounds. He shuddered inwardly.

"It'll be okay, though." Meryl had read Vash's mind, sending him a kind look. "Miss Judy can get them out with a c-section if I have a hard time."

Thank goodness for that. Vash was so grateful that it was actually a safe and viable option for her, he could just about cry.

"What's a c-section?" Jamie directed up at Wolfwood with his mouth full of food. Wolfwood paused his own chewing and grimaced to the side for half a second, probably trying to kid-proof the explanation in his head.

"Don't talk with your mouth full, buddy," Meryl said to give Wolfwood more time.

"Oh. Sorry. I forgot I took a bite." Jamie swung his legs as he chewed, patiently waiting. He was a lot more patient than his sister.

"Dad, what is it?" Liora said in exasperation.

"It's when a doctor puts a pregnant person to sleep so they can get the baby out with surgery," Wolfwood finally settled on.

Jamie and Liora shared that telepathic twin look that made Vash's heart twinge strangely.

"I don't like that," Liora mumbled. Jamie nodded with a little pinch on his forehead.

"It's not as scary as it sounds, baby," Meryl assured her softly. "Miss Judy is a really good doctor. She would take care of me. But, hopefully that won't happen."

"Maybe the baby will just fall right out, like dad says," Jamie suggested brightly, prompting a round of chuckles.

"Hopefully so!" Milly agreed. "In any case, Meryl will be safe. You can bet on that."

As usual, Milly was a balm for the soul. Both kids relaxed and turned their attention to their soup and sandwiches. Vash sent her a grateful look, and she gave him a thumbs up.

Just as the meal was winding down, Meryl straightened her back and laid a hand on her belly. "Oop. Come here, Liora."

Eager as a puppy, Liora slid out of her chair and ran around the table to Meryl, plastering to her side and watching with fascinated eyes as Meryl took her hand and pressed it over her side. Unable to resist, Vash wiped his mouth with his napkin and stood up, following. He knelt down on Meryl's other side—oof, his knees—and pressed his palm to Meryl's pliable stomach. Sleepy shifts and wiggles nudged his hand, and he couldn't help but grin.

No matter how many times he felt it, it was no less precious. He remembered exactly how it had felt to be kicked from the inside like that.

"Hi, baby," Liora cooed, rubbing Meryl's belly and showering it with kisses. "I looove youuuu." She looked up at Meryl with eager blue eyes. The eyes of a Plant. "Will they be like me and Jamie and mama, kaachan?"

Meryl briefly chewed her lip. "Maybe," she hedged. "Maybe not. They might just be human, like me and your dad. Will that matter to you?"

Liora instantly pulled such an highly offended face that Vash nearly laughed.

"No!" She exclaimed. "I love them anyway! Just like I love you and dad and Aunt Milly." Her head canted forward toward Meryl, and Meryl answered her with a forehead touch and a smile. Liora's bioluminescent markings pulsed in a soft blue wave from her head to her toes.

It was so cute how neither of the twins cared that Vash was the only one they could actually connect with. They still touched foreheads with Meryl and Wolfwood and Milly, and Brad and Luida, often, like a sweet little extra hug.

Jamie closed in beside Vash. He always seemed a little bit skittish to touch Meryl's belly when the baby was kicking, but he did it anyway, warily poking against the lumps and knots of his little brother or sister wriggling away.

"Does it hurt, kaachan?" He asked meekly.

Meryl shook her head. "Not really. Sometimes it doesn't feel good, but mostly it just feels funny."

Vash knew that was a kind-hearted lie, but he didn't correct her. The kids were still little. They didn't need to worry about their godmother hurting because of their baby sibling just yet. They were both too much like Vash in that regard; they would worry themselves to death. Best to soften it for them for now, until they were a little bit older. They were still so, so young.

He knew Wolfwood disagreed, but that was okay. He rarely tried to undermine Vash's or Meryl's parenting decisions, just as they'd put the whole "killing versus no killing" argument far behind them. They were a team, all three of them, none more of the "main parent" than the other.

Meryl stroked Liora's hair, working out a tangle. "What do you think, Lia? Boy or girl?"

"Hmm..." Liora rubbed her pinky finger over her beauty mark, as she often did. Vash could never keep from wondering if Tesla had had the same habit. "Maybe a girl! But a boy would also be fun. I like having a brother."

"I hope they're a girl," Jamie murmured hesitantly. "I think I want another sister."

Liora pouted. "Why do you want another of me? You're always saying I'm loud and grumpy."

"I dunno, I just do! I've never had a brother," Jamie argued.

"We'll just have to see, won't we," Wolfwood said, helping Milly carry the dishes to the sink.

The element of surprise this time around definitely added an extra layer of excitement. Meryl was like a present just waiting to be unwrapped.

Doubly so since she was due in July.

Vash squished his cheek against Meryl's shoulder, watching with soft eyes as the kids merrily quarreled over their baby sibling and Wolfwood shooed Milly away from the dishes, tugging on the apron she'd been about to use.

A lump tried to rise in his throat.

How is this real? How is this really my life?

Is this really my life...?

Melancholy thoughts often encroached on domestic moments like this. Like his brain just couldn't be convinced it was a hundred percent real, even though he knew good and well that it was. He was here, right now, kneeling beside Meryl with her arm around his neck, watching their unborn baby squirm around in her belly. Wolfwood was doing the dishes while Milly wiped off the table. Jamie and Liora were gasping in fascination over the baby's antics.

He was here.

You're not. This is too happy and it isn't real.

How asinine. Somehow, after all these years, his thoughts still managed to sound like Nai every now and then.

But, that was fine, Vash reminded himself with a quiet sigh. Grief and trauma never really went away. They just lessened, diminished, until they were bearable.

Moments like this one, warm and loving, helped his heart and soul to continue healing.

"Mama?" Liora broke Vash out of his reverie. She reached over Meryl to touch his cheek, and her fingers came back wet. "Why are you crying?"

Jamie tugged on Vash's sleeve, silently pleading. Vash obeyed, leaning down so Jamie could press their foreheads together. Loving reassurance flowed through their connection, as tangible and real as Vash's hand in front of his face, and when Vash broke the connection, he smiled tenderly down into his son's worried little face. He looked up at Liora and Meryl, the latter concerned and the former understanding. Wolfwood was giving them a fond, lopsided smile from the sink. Milly looked on with affection brimming in her eyes.

Vash shook his head, his heart overflowing.

"I'm just happy, that's all."

With a relieved smile that settled on Vash's soul, Jamie hugged him tight.

"Good."

 

FIN

Notes:

And that's a wrap 🥹🥹🥹 I’m so emotional. That ending was so self-indulgent I just about got diabetes, lmao. Mashwood fam + Aunt Milly makes me so SOFTE

Fun fact, the bonus didn't even exist until like. Friday. Someone said pregnant Meryl to me in a comment, I blacked out, and when I woke up, there were 3.1k more words in my document. Oopsiedoops! 🫣

I also had to throw in a little smidge of world line weirdness at the end, because even I keep forgetting this is not the canon ending. It's the good ending. The end of chapter 5 is the true end 🥺😭 but I absolutely loved writing this "what if" scenario, it’s so close to my heart. In this life, another life, at least mashwood is happy and healthy and safe 🥹

If you’ve made it to the end of this fic, thank you for reading! Please let me know if you enjoyed, I love reading your thoughts! Thank you for all the amazing comments and love you all showed this fic. It truly means the most 💖💙

Bye now! 🤞